Team 7
by Hanumon
Summary: Hinata's dreams come true when she's assigned to the same team as Naruto. It's a whole new chapter of her life. And what surprises will their growing relationship hold?
1. Dreams

**This is a plot bunny I had and couldn't get out of my head for a few weeks, about Hinata instead of Sakura being assigned to Team 7. Highly original, I know.**

**Also as a note, pretend this is an AU where everyone is roughly two or three years older than the manga. I'm so used to everyone being 16 and up for the last decade, it gets squicky trying to go back to dealing with 12-13 year olds, especially considering the mature themes present.**

**I'll write at least a few more chapters no matter what, and if I get some feedback I'll continue it to novel length. I hope.**

**And just to get this out of the way: Obviously it's Naruto/Hinata, and it will never be a harem or plural marriage. I'm undecided on all of the other pairings.**

**Also if the story suddenly transitions between two scenes, it's because this site ripped out the page break I put in. I'm trying to figure that out.**

**One last thing. DISCLAIMER: I don't own Naruto, nor do I claim to own anything related to it. If I did, I wouldn't be putting it on a site about fan fiction, I'd be too busy swimming in my money pool from all the merchandise sales.**

* * *

Naruto was looking right at her, pure bliss on his face. It had to be a dream. But if it wasn't, she couldn't waste the chance. She could hear the voice in her head yelling at her to respond. It was telling her to do something, and it was using some rather colorful language to tell her that now was her chance to change her fate, to stop being such a shy, quiet, unnoticeable wallflower.

This was it. She was going to do it. She slowly brought up her right palm from the desk, and gave a weak wave to the whiskered target of her affection. She was about to say something when he shouted "SAKURA-CHAN!"

Hinata's palm shot down to the desk, a heavy blush on her face.

She had been so focused on what was ahead of her, she hadn't noticed the pink-haired kunoichi had entered behind her, along with Ino. Hinata sank down into her seat, wishing she could just faint already, but her fear didn't allow her to escape that easily. It was unfounded, though, as no one said anything to her. She sat there, statuesque, as Sakura and Ino shoved Naruto out of his seat, and a half-dozen of the female ninjas in class began to argue with each other over who deserved to sit by Sasuke. But she wasn't looking at them, she was staring at Naruto, as jumped up onto the desk, and bent over towards Sasuke with an angry look on his face. Then a careless boy in front of Sasuke suddenly moved, and bumped into Naruto, sending him lips-first into the Uchiha, where they...

When she woke up, she heard Iruka's voice. "Team 5…." She couldn't believe it, she had always dreamed of giving Naruto his first kiss, and now, now it was - she froze. Sitting right next to her was a rather sour-looking Naruto, who was nursing the nearly-healed remains of a black eye with his hand. She didn't remember him having a black eye this week, how long had she been out? Over where he had been earlier, a pleased-looking Sakura was annoying Sasuke. "…Team 7: Uchiha Sasuke, Uzumaki Naruto-"

"GOD DAMN IT!"

Iruka sighed at Naruto's outburst, and continued. "And Hyuuga Hinata."

Her head went right back down to the desk

When she woke up again, Naruto was poking her arm with a finger. Everyone else was gone.

"H-h-h-h-hai!" she squeaked out, shooting her head up, positioning herself with her back straight, and like always, her fingers twiddling in front of her face.

"Iruka-sensei said to wake you up," he told her. "We're supposed to meet our Jonin-sensei here this afternoon. We're on the same team as that bastard Sasuke."

Hinata nodded her head, not trusting her voice just yet. She needed a moment to process everything still.

"Hey are you sick or something?" Naruto asked after a few seconds.

"N-n-n-n-no, just tired, N-N-Naruto," she said. It was the truth, she had spent half the night tossing and turning, silently crying, and pleading with the heavens, back when she thought she would never see Naruto after he had failed the graduation exam. "I-I-I thought you fai—" she cut off that sentence almost as quickly as it had started.

She remembered how he had looked at the graduation, sitting there alone in the swing, holding back the tears of his shattered dreams as all of the other genin were showing off their new forehead protectors. All save her. Hiashi was not what one would call a hands-on parent, unless he, her cousin, and her sister were beating another Gentle Fist technique into her. As such, the Hyuuga heiress didn't have anyone to show off her forehead protector to. Instead she had hid behind a tree, watching Naruto until he had left. Well, technically she had watched him even more, following him until she had to go home. " I-I-I mean, I'm glad you graduated."

"Oh, yeah, I uh…" he put his hand on the back of his head. "Did some extra credit."

"Extra… credit? L-l-l-like what?" Hinata was taking a deep breath, trying to stay awake. This was already the best day of her life, she had already said more words to Naruto in the last minute than she had in the last month, but part of her wanted more. Inner Hinata was refusing to let her stop now.

"Huh," he said, a confused look on his face. "You know, you're the only person who's asked me that much. I didn't think anyone would care, so I didn't even think about what I'd tell people. Even the old man didn't give me a cover story. I can't really say everything, but Mizuki tried to kill Iruka, so I beat the hell out of him using a forbidden technique off of a scroll I stole and memorized, and then Iruka said I graduated and we went out for ramen. It was really good ramen."

"WHAT?" she asked, jumping up. "M-M-M-Mizuki was a Chunin. That's amazing!" When the first word left her mouth, she sat back down, scared. She hoped she hadn't ruined her perfect day by making him think she didn't believe him – she finally was… alone… in the classroom… with… with Naruto… and no one else was….

She woke up with a panicked Naruto kneeling over her. He was constantly adjusting his gaze from her, to the door, to the window. "Oh no, wake up, wake up, wake – hey, Hinata, are you sure you're okay?"

"H-h-hai!" she once again squeaked.

"Hmmmm," he said, glancing at the clock. "Oh man! We were supposed to get lunch and come back to meet our sensei, but there's no way I can be back in time now." He frowned.

Hinata took a big gulp. "Y-y-y-y-y-y-you y-y-y-you can s-s-s-share with m-m-m-me, I always pack too m-m-m-much."

"Wow, really? Awesome."

Hinata nodded frantically, and with expert skill, suddenly had her lunch on the desk, unwrapped. Several rice balls were visible, and Hinata silently sighed in relief, glad that she had made normal ones today, instead of her Naruto-shaped ones.

"Wow, this is good," Naruto said, after grabbing and wolfing down one of them. "This is almost as good as ramen."

"T-t-thank you," Hinata blushed. She knew how much he liked ramen. Then again, that was the only thing she had ever seen him eating. Was this the first time he had eaten something different?

They ate in silence for a few minutes, Naruto too busy eating and Hinata too busy staying awake. Soon enough, their meal was over and the students started to filter back in, only to be escorted back out by the Jonin who came by.

Long after the last team had gone out, only Team 7 remained, still waiting. Sasuke sat in the front row, staring at the front of the room, while Naruto gave the back of his head a death stare. Hinata simply passed the time away gazing at Naruto and sighing quietly. The only time anyone spoke up was an hour later, when Naruto complained about how long their new sensei was going to make them wait. He got up to look out the door, and then went to the chalk board. He took one of the erasers and placed it on the door. "That's what you get for being late," he snickered, and went back to his seat.

"Pft, like a Jonin is going to fall for something like that," Sasuke muttered, as he took a rare break from his brooding.

Hinata felt like she should say something, but she also felt like she was going to ruin a good thing, and ultimately resumed her daydreaming. It came as a surprise when she heard the door opening sometime later. A man with silver hair and a blue mask that covered all of his face, save his right eye, stepped through – and the eraser bounced off of his head onto the ground.

"Hmmm…" the Jonin said. "How can I say this? My first impression is… I don't like you guys."

* * *

"Okay, how about we start with some introductions?" their new sensei said as they sat on the roof.

"What do you want to know?" Naruto asked.

"Oh I don't know. How about your likes, dislikes, dreams for the future, hobbies, stuff like that."

"Hey, hey," Naruto replied, eying their new sensei suspiciously. "How about you introduce yourself to us first?"

"Oh… Me? My name is Kakashi Hatake. I have no desire to tell you guys about my likes and dislikes. Dreams for the future…. Hm.… I have lots of hobbies."

The three students sighed at the veritable wealth of new information they had to process. The moment passed, and Naruto excitedly jumped up to introduce himself first. "My name is Naruto Uzumaki. I like cup ramen. I like the ramen at the restaurant that Iruka-sensei buys me even more. What I dislike is waiting three minutes for the ramen cup to cook. My dream…." He stood up, and shouted the next sentence. "My dream is to surpass the Hokage, and then everyone in the village will have to acknowledge my existence!"

Sasuke went next. "My name is Sasuke Uchiha. I don't have anything I like, and I dislike many things. I don't have a dream, but I have an ambition, the resurrection of my clan and to kill a certain man."

The three other ninja stared at him for a moment, before Kakashi made a hand gesturing telling Hinata to continue.

"M-m-m-my name is Hinata Hyuuga. I like flowers and cinnamon rolls. I dislike people who are cruel. And my hobbies are pressing flowers and exploring and taking pictures of … uh… um…."

"Does she do this a lot?" Kakashi asked as Hinata fainted in place. He suspected he already knew the answer. They didn't call him the man who copied one thousand techniques because he wasn't attentive. Though in this situation, he supposed that owning the largest Icha Icha collection in Konoha was what allowed him to deduce what was going on.

"That's the third time today," Naruto said.

"Alright, I have an important meeting to go to," Kakashi lied. Or perhaps one could consider what he did at the Memorial Stone a meeting, in which case he was telling the truth. "When she wakes up, let her know we have survival training tomorrow. Training Ground 3, 9AM, don't eat breakfast or you'll puke." Before either of the conscious young men could respond, Kakashi had disappeared and a pile of leaves appeared where he had been standing.

"Whatever," Sasuke said, leaving nearly as quickly.

"Uhhhmmmmm," Naruto said, glancing around. "Hinata?" he poked her arm, but got no response. He was starting to wonder just how sleep deprived she was, but it looked like rain clouds were forming. He would probably just have to carry her home.

"Damn it, I don't know where you live!" Naruto said, still no response from the Hyuuga. With a sigh, he bent over, and picked her up, carrying her out of the rain.

* * *

When Hinata woke up, she wasn't sure where she was. It smelled like broth and milk, and there was a slight breeze tickling her nose. As she focused and looked around with her dojutsu, she saw the nightstand with the old-fashioned radio on it, the large poster with a bowl of ramen on it, the television in the corner, the window with a clear view of the Hokage monument, and the four framed portraits of each Hokage hanging to the side of the window.

Her heart nearly stopped. She knew this place well enough. She had been here dozens of times before. More accurately, she had been outside of here dozens of times before, but there was nothing in here she had never looked at using her Byakugan. This time, though, she was - she was _in_ Naruto's apartment. Then she realized something else as she looked down – she was in his bed.

When she woke up again, it looked like the sun had moved another hour in the sky. She wasn't sure where she was, but – no, no, as it all came back to her, she had to stay awake this time or else she'd….

"Come on, wake up already." Sometime later, Hinata slowly opened her eyes, and saw a pair of deep blue eyes staring right at her. She blinked a few times, and realized Naruto was tugging on her shoulder.

"Ah!" she cried out, her head shooting up – right into Naruto's, her head slamming into his forehead with tremendous force.

"Gya! Ow!" he said, bringing his hands up to grab at the point of impact.

"S-s-s-s-sorry!" Hinata cried out.

"No worries, I'm tougher than that!" Naruto replied, giving her a thumbs-up. He focused on smiling to take his mind off of the pain between his eyes. "I feel great! Believe it!"

"Eep!" she remembered where she was, and climbed out of the bed.

"Oh yeah, you passed out again, and it looked like it was going to rain," Naruto said, awkwardly glancing out the window at the bright, nigh-cloudless sky. "Well it did earlier. But I didn't know where you lived, so I brought you here."

"T-t-t-thank you, N-N-Naruto," Hinata replied, breathing shallowly as she tried not to faint again. "U-u-u-um, can I use your bathroom?"

"Yeah, it's right over-" he was cut off as she quickly walked to the door and closed it.

After splashing cold water on her face two or three – dozen – times, she knew she could stay awake. She dried her face on the towel, and as she set it back, she noticed a toothbrush on the counter. It was something that had been in Naruto's mouth, if put it in her mouth it would be like – no, no, she couldn't do that. Before she could let temptation take over, she opened the door and stepped out.

A few steps away from the door, Naruto was sitting at the table, staring at a ramen cup impatiently, and holding a timer in his hands. Then she noticed there were two ramen cups. Stabilizing herself, she carefully walked over to the table and sat "I-i-i-is this fo-"

"You're supposed to eat something hot if you're sick, right?" he asked. "I don't really get sick so I don't know." She nodded her head, and a moment later the timer in his hands went off. "FINALLY!" he shouted. "Itadakimasu!"

"I-i-itadakimasu!" Hinata chimed in happily. She was only a third of the way through her ramen when Naruto finished. He crumpled up the container, and threw it at the bin. It bounced off of the rim and landed on the floor. Grumbling, he got up to put it in, and sat back down.

"Oh yeah," he said, as he watched her eat. "Kakashi-sensei said to tell you that we have training tomorrow." He scratched his forehead, "Uh… he said… it was some place called Training Ground 3 at 9AM tomorrow."

"N-N-Naruto," Hinata asked, hoping she had guessed correctly. "Do you know where Training Ground 3 is?"

"No…."

"I-I-It's okay, I can m-m-meet you tomorrow morning and take y-y-you there."

"Wow, really?" he asked. "You're the best, Hinata!"

It took nearly half a minute for Hinata to stop coughing, and she could still feel a few smaller pieces of ramen still somewhere in her lungs, but at least she was able to finally wheeze out a reply. "N-n-no, it's okay, we're teammates, I'm happy to do it."

"Huh," Naruto responded, nodding slightly as he waited for her to eat. But it also seemed like he was thinking deeply about something, since his normal impatience was not present. "Hinata?" he finally asked. "How come you don't hate me like everyone else?"

"W-w-w-what?" she asked. "Everyone doesn't hate you!"

"Well no…. Iruka-sensei doesn't, and the old man is pretty nice. Oh, and Teuchi and Ayame are nice people too. Everyone else does, though. But you've never punched me, or yelled at me, or anything. You didn't even complain about me being on your team." He instinctively felt under his eye, remembering the haymaker the pink-haired ninja had given him. It still felt a bit sensitive to the touch.

"I-I-I-I'm glad you're on my team, Naruto," Hinata replied, heart racing, "I-I-I-I don't hate you, at all, b-b-b-because, because I-I-I-I-I, that is, I-I-I'm, y-y-you're, we, I, b-b-because teammates are supposed to be f-f-friends."

"Friends?" he asked. She nodded vigorously. "Well I'm never going to be friends with Sasuke, I hate that asshole, he thinks he's so cool just because he gets good grades and has all those girls chasing after him. And he hates me back, so that's never changing. But you're okay. What do we have to do now to be friends?"

"O-o-o-h, well, um," she said as she felt the blood rushing to her cheeks. "W-w-w-we could spend time t-t-tog, s-s-spend time doing things."

"Like training?"

She nodded some more, and noticing something on the floor near her, picked it up. "Oh." In her hands were the goggles Naruto had always worn before. "You w-w-weren't wearing these today. A-a-aren't you going to wear these anymore?" she asked.

"Those? Nah," he replied. "I can't wear it and my forehead protector at the same time, and it itches if I put it around my neck like you do. I was just going to throw them out; you can have them if you want. Friends give each other stuff, right?"

Hinata swallowed hard. Naruto was giving her a gift. Sure, he was going to throw them out anyway, but still, these had been on his forehead for years. She held them up to her head, as if she was inspecting them, but she covertly pressed them against her nose and took a deep breath. They smelled like Naruto. There was no way she could refuse. "T-t-thank you," she said. She slid them onto her forehead, and had them fastened in a few seconds.

"Hey, those look good on you," Naruto commented, unaware of the reaction it would cause. "Hinata? Hinata?" He dove to catch her.

Hinata had lost track of how many times she had passed out today, but as she woke up again, she knew that it was definitely a new record. She opened her eyes slowly, and saw Naruto's own pair again, staring back. Only this time, she felt his firm grip on her arms and back – he must have caught her when she fainted.

"I-I-I should go, bye Naruto!" she said, running to the door. "See you tomorrow!" she added when it was closed, and she was on the other side. She got home as quickly as her legs could carry her – which, after years of training from stalking Naruto, wasn't long at all. After a long, hot bath, she jumped into her bed and shut her eyes tight, trying to force herself to sleep.

Tomorrow couldn't come fast enough.


	2. Bell Curve

**The bell test was just going to be a small part of the next chapter, but I figured it would be entertaining enough as its own chapter before getting into the more divergent parts of the story (Naruto and Hinata spending plenty of time training together).**

**Also just a preemptive warning to stop anyone from freaking out: This ****_isn't_**** an angsty story where they're going to be giving cliché excuses to each other for fifty chapters. But at least give me two more chapters so that it's not just an out-of-the-blue thing when they do date each other. Seriously, Hinata isn't a floozy.**

* * *

Naruto looked at his clock. 7:30. Why in the hell was he up this early? He could still sleep for another half hour. A quiet, yet noticeable sound from the front of his apartment reminded him. Someone was knocking at his door. He hopped out of his bed, still in his pajamas and fish-eating-his-skull cap as he opened the door.

"Oh, hi Hinata," he said, rubbing his eyes. There on the other side of the door was his Hyuuga teammate, a shy smile on her face. He blinked for a moment when he saw her with a pair of goggles on her forehead, but then recalled he had given them to her yesterday. He wasn't thinking about any of that anymore, though, as his nose caught a scent. In each of her hands was a box wrapped in a handkerchief.

"G-g-g-good morning, N-N-N-Naruto," she stuttered out. "I made b-b-breakfast and l-l-l-lunch for us so we could do our b-best today!" She closed her eyes, and held one of the boxes out in front of his face.

"Awesome!" Naruto said, snatching the box from her and running back to the table. "What did you make?" he asked, untying the handkerchief and taking off the top of the box.

"Oh, n-n-nothing special, just egg, and rice, and o-o-other things," she replied, stepping inside and closing the door.

"Prrty grrd," he mumbled back through a mouthful of the medley she had prepared. After a hard swallow, he got up and poured himself a glass of milk. "You want a glass?"

"O-o-okay."

When they finally finished, Naruto set down the chopsticks he was holding and stood up, starting to head to the door. "Man, that was great, Hinata. Thanks."

"U-u-u-um Naruto, your clothes."

"Huh," he replied as he looked down, finally noticing he was still in his sleepwear. He had gotten so used to waking up alone and carrying out his own morning routine, he never developed a habit of double-checking his wardrobe before heading out. "I'll go change really quick."

Hinata nodded as Naruto ran back to his room. When he was out of sight, Hinata whispered something quietly as she looked at the wall in front of her.

"Byakugan."

* * *

When they were approaching the edge of the more urban areas of Konoha, near where it turned into the open fields of the training areas, Naruto suddenly stopped. "Oh man, I think I left the milk on the counter."

"I-I-I-It's okay," Hinata said, "We're early enough to-"

"No wait, it's okay, I got this. Shadow Clone Jutsu!" he intoned and a second Naruto appeared between him and Hinata. "Hey," Naruto said sharply to the clone, "go back to my place and put the milk back in the fridge."

"Why don't you go do it?"

"Don't make me pop you!"

"Fine, fine, I'm going, I'm going. Asshole." With that, the clone ran off on his task.

Naruto smiled a sheepish grin, "Sorry Hinata, some of them like to talk back. Uh, Hinata?"

Hinata was staring at where the second Naruto had appeared, but his question caused her to unfreeze and regain her focus. "Y-y-y-y-you know, y-you know the, the _Shadow Clone_ Jutsu?'

"Yeah," Naruto said. "You know it too?"

"NO!" she shot back in surprise. "T-t-t-that's a dangerous high-level technique. It's forbidden to even teach it to someone who isn't a Jonin or Chunin with a high chakra capacity. If you're careless you can die of chakra exhaustion. Who taught it to you?"

"Hey, I didn't know that. I learned it off of a scroll I stole at the old man's place. Wait, hold on," he gave her an assuring look. "It was an accident and he already dealt with it, I'm not a criminal now or anything. But how do you know about it?"

"I-I-I-It was in one of our books at the academy library, about the Nidaime Hokage. It said that we shouldn't do it. Is this what you were talking about yesterday? How you beat up Mizuki?"

"Yeah, it was. I just made like a thousand clones and then we all jumped him."

"A THOUSAND!" she asked incredulously. "N- N- N- N-Naruto! It takes a Jonin's chakra capacity to even make one without injuring yourself. If you can make a thousand, you must have fifty times more chakra than the Ho-Ho-Ho-Hokage!"

"Really?" Naruto eagerly replied. A wide grin formed on his face and he stuck out his right hand in in a fist, the thumb pointing up. "Guess I'm pretty awesome then! I'm one step closer to being the next Hokage, believe it!"

Hinata simply nodded, dumbfounded, until she felt like she could form words again. "H-H-H-How do you have so much ch-ch-chakra?"

"Oh it's because I -," he suddenly cut himself off. None of his classmates knew about the Kyuubi, and he knew Iruka said he wasn't the fox, but still, he didn't want to scare his teammate. It had nearly destroyed him when Mizuki had told him, if he told her now he'd lose his only friend. "-because I guess I was born like that."

"Y-y-y-you have a kekkei genkai?"

"Uhhhhhhhhmmmm…." He slowly scratched the back of his neck, giving her a confused look, "A what?"

"Y-y-y-you don – w-w-well a kekkei genkai is a special g-g-genetic technique passed down in clans. L-l-like my Byakugan."

"Uhhhh..." he started to repeat.

"B-Byakugan. My eyes."

"Oh, is that why they look like that? What can they do? Oh man, do they shoot out fire and lightning?"

"N-n-no," she shook her head, "They l-l-let me see all around me, and when I activate them I can s-s-see chakra too, or through-." She was unable to finish her last sentence, as Naruto decided to slightly bend over and stare right into her eyes, his face only inches from hers.

Naruto sighed as she fainted; he caught her with one hand, and used the other to grab the lunch she was carrying. This time it only took five seconds for him to wake her up, and they resumed their trek.

They walked for a few more minutes, until Naruto suddenly froze. His eyes stared straight ahead, and he wore a blank, yet contemplative, expression on his face.

"N-N-Naruto?" Hinata asked, stepping in front of him to look at him. "What is it?"

"Huh? Sorry, the clone that put the milk in the fridge just popped himself."

"Oh… okay…."

"You left the other lunch box back on the table."

"S-s-s-sorry, I forgot it," she replied. She tried to sound convincing.

"I guess you can always pick it up after this."

She nodded – making sure to conceal her grin by walking ahead - and resumed leading him to Training Ground 3. They were the first to arrive, but not by much, as Sasuke arrived a few minutes later at exactly a quarter to nine. Each ninja sat on one of the three short wooden poles that were conveniently positioned in a clearing near the center of the area.

They waited for half an hour.

"This is boring, where is he?"

One more hour passed.

"Damn it Sasuke, I'll show you who's dead last!"

Two more hours passed.

"Good idea packing lunch, Hinata, you're really smart. H-H-Hinata!? Damn it, not again!"

The hours continued to bleed away, with the bored Genin not wandering too far from the main area of the training ground, mostly out of fear of missing Kakashi when he finally arrived.

* * *

Three hours after noon, and six hours after he had been expected, Kakashi was approaching Training Ground 3. They would be ready just about now. By his guess, it would have only taken half an hour for Naruto to break, but the Uchiha and Hyuuga heirs likely had stronger mental fortitude. Sasuke's determination was no doubt higher than average, he had managed to go the last few years alone without resorting to pulling juvenile pranks, so he would need a few hours to simmer. Hinata - if her home training regimen was anything like what Gai had mentioned about Neji's during one of their many challenges - would likely keep her wits about her for a few hours as well. Indeed, the two heirs probably wouldn't be too fazed just from waiting. But scheduling his test a little later than usual in order to leave them out in the afternoon sun on empty stomachs with a hungry Naruto – now _that_ would be enough. Now it was just a matter of coming in to perform the test. By dinnertime he'd be able to fail them all and go back to his regular duties. Particularly, he'd be able to make the 7:45 screening of the latest mature film to grace the Konoha cinema.

He took care to go the long way around, and concealed himself in the trees, so as to sneak up on the three ninja-in-training. Because of that, it was a surprise for him to see a lone Naruto hiding behind a tree, staring at his hands so absorbedly it seemed as if he were trying to drill a hole through them. One was balled up into a fist with just the thumb out, while the other was unfurled into a palm with all of the fingers extended.

"SIX!" Hinata's voice called out, carrying a subtle hint of excitement that Kakashi's trained ear was able to easily pick up on.

"Wow!" Naruto called out in reply as he started to head back towards the other members of Team 7. "You really can see everything."

"I didn't know you could count that high, Dead Last," Sasuke stated.

"Hey screw you Sasuke!"

"Umm…. ummm…." Hinata noticed something, and poked Naruto's shoulder with one hand, and pointed into the woods with the other, in Kakashi's direction; both boys followed her gaze.

With a regretful sigh for letting himself be seen by her dojutsu, the Copy Ninja stepped closer, putting himself in view of the other two members of the team. "Good afternoon."

"Hey!" Naruto shouted, not seeming to care what else his sensei had to say. "What's the big idea making us wait all day like that?"

"I had to help an elderly woman cross the street," Kakashi replied monotonously, as he took an alarm clock out of his flak jacket and placed it on a stump. He shook his head as he noticed an empty lunch box. Well, even without hunger, he could still break them.

"What's that?" Naruto asked.

"It's the timer for your test," the Jonin said, still carrying an air of disinterest in his voice. "I set it for 5:00." He took out two bells from a pouch, and held them out. "You have until then to get a bell from me. If you don't get one, you fail and go back to the academy."

"Wait a minute, there's three of us, but only two bells," the orange-clad ninja pointed out.

"Yes," Kakashi said, before bending close towards the three Genin, and continuing in a deeper voice than before. "So no matter what, one of you will fail."

The trio stood in silence, a drop of sweat running down each of their foreheads.

"You have to go all out. Use your shurikens, kunai, jutsus – you won't pass unless you come at me trying to kill me with everything you have. Okay then…. start."

"W-w-wait," Hinata stuttered out, concern on her face.

"Yeah, you'll die," Naruto added, pulling out a kunai. "You couldn't even avoid a chalk – OOF!" whatever he was going to add, he was unable to say as Kakashi's right hand ripped the knife out of his hand, while the Jonin's knee collided with Naruto's back and sent him rolling forward. Hinata and Sasuke froze, neither one had seen him fast enough to react. Even with her Byakugan, all Hinata had managed to do was cringe in the time it took Kakashi to floor the young shinobi. Hinata scurried over to help Naruto up.

"Ignore what Dead Last says," the silver-haired ninja dully stated, Body Flickering away as a pile of leaves replaced him. He was several dozen steps ahead of the trio now, an orange book in his hands. "Come at me when you're ready."

Hinata blushed when she saw the title on the book's cover.

"Hey, what the hell are you doing?" an irate Naruto shouted as he stood up again, none too pleased at hearing that nickname. "This is a fight, why are you reading?"

"Because I want to know what happens next," the older man responded, still not looking up from his book. With his mask blocking the view of his mouth, it appeared like he was completely motionless. "Don't worry; against you three it won't change anything. You can go and hide now. Hiding is very important for ninja. Element of surprise and all that. Your highly-effective bright-orange camouflage can't do all the work for you."

"Hey! Don't underestimate me!" Naruto screamed, running at Kakashi with a straight charge, bringing his right hand back and throwing a punch as he approached. Sasuke used the opportunity Naruto's attack afforded him to circle around Kakashi, reaching for the bells. His hand was inches away, when the next thing he knew the masked ninja was gone, with only leaves and a stumbling Naruto in front of him.

"Ninja Fighting Lesson One: Taijutsu - hand-to-hand combat," the Jonin said as Naruto collided into Sasuke and they tumbled to the ground. The Copy Ninja reappeared in a crouched position behind the two of them. Sasuke gulped as he saw Kakashi form what looked like the first seal of a Katon technique, only for him to split his hands apart and thrust them forward, fingers-first. "Hidden Leaf Ancient Taijutsu Supreme Technique: Double Takedown Style: **A Thousand Years of Pain!**"

Both of the shinobi grunted in pain as Kakashi's finger painfully attacked each one's hindquarters, the sheer force throwing them for a spin. Before the two hand landed in an intertwined pile on the ground, the Jonin was already gone. Hinata was blushing deeply at what she had just seen, but collected herself enough to run towards them.

"God damn it, come back here!" Naruto shouted after getting back up, running blindly into the tree line.

Hinata chased after him, calling out weakly. "Wait, N-N-Naruto let me use my - N-N-Naruto?" To the shame of her years of experience stalking Naruto, she had already lost him. However, that would be easy to fix as she started to prepare her Byakugan for the all-too-familiar task of locating the knucklehead ninja.

"Hinata!" she heard Naruto from behind him, and stopped herself from activating her dojutsu, instead turning to face where his voice had come from. "R-ruuun, away…." A moment later, he stumbled out from behind a tree, falling onto his hands and knees. His orange jumpsuit was dripping red with blood as dozens of shuriken and kunai pierced his flesh. He had even taken an enormous fuma shuriken to the back. With a cough of blood that painted the grass crimson, he collapsed onto the ground.

"Ninja Fighting Lesson Two: Genj- um…" the Jonin stopped his prepared lesson halfway through, as Hinata crumpled onto the ground, tears in her eyes as she sobbed.

"Naruto?" she choked out, reaching for him. "N-n-no! I-I-I-I, I had so much I wanted to tell you…."

'Maybe I went a little too far with her,' Kakashi thought as he ended the illusion and used a Body Flicker, disappearing once again.

"Hinata?" Naruto asked, popping out from where he had heard voices. He noticed the kunoichi curled up into the ground, a tormented look on her face, and tears in her eyes. "Holy shit, Hinata!" He raced towards her. "Are you okay? What the hell did he do?"

She blinked several times until her eyes were relatively free of tears, and could finally react to Naruto's hands grabbing her shoulders, shaking her back to the present. "Naruto, you're alive!" she said with a smile, reaching out and touching his shoulder to make sure she wasn't dreaming. Her face turned bright red an instant later, as she realized how the two of them must have looked to an observer. She let go and rolled over to put a little distance between them as her thoughts cleared. She mentally kicked herself. She had been fooled so easily by such a simple and obvious Genjutsu; she could likely have used her Byakugan to see through it. "I-I-I-I'm fine," she let out in a rattled out.

"Huh? You sure?" he asked with a confused look on his face.

"It was just an i-i-illusion," she said in a steadier voice now, slowly standing up and using her sleeve to dry her eyes. "R-r-really, let's g-go."

Naruto nodded and stood up as well. "Do you see him around here?"

Hinata shook her head, when a loud explosion rang out from the center of the training ground. The two raced off back to the clearing, where they saw Sasuke buried in the ground up to his neck as Kakashi stood over him, brushing the dirt out of his hands as he said something. "…against you."

"There he is! I got you!" Naruto roared as he charged forward again. Like last time, he was knocked back by the masked ninja. Fortunately for him, this time Kakashi lectured him instead of using his secret technique.

"Trying the same thing again?"

"Argh, now you're really starting to piss me off!" Naruto shouted, standing back up, and bracing himself in a jutsu stance. "Multi Shadow Clone Jutsu!"

Over a hundred Naruto clones appeared around the clearing, surrounding Kakashi. The Jonin's face was unreadable, but he flinched internally. When he was assigned this team by the Hokage, he had heard Naruto defeated Mizuki by using the Shadow Clone Jutsu, but this was beyond expectations. He had assumed it was five, perhaps as many as ten. Though considering how poor the young shinobi's Taijutsu skills appeared to be, he supposed he _needed_ that many clones to beat the Chunin.

Sasuke gave a glance at the strange sight, with emotions Hinata couldn't read running through his mind. As for herself, the young Hyuuga gripped the tree she was standing next to as hard as she could, even using a little bit of chakra to keep steady, and trying the best she could to stay conscious. She was improving remarkably fast, at least she thought so, especially compared to yesterday, considering she had only fainted twice today. And the second time was due to a Genjutsu, she didn't have to count it. '_So… so many Narutos,_' she thought with a slight grin on her lips and awe on her face. Even having been told by him this morning, some small part of her had held doubts about his ability to use the jutsu, much to her shame.

"GO!" one of the Narutos yelled, and all of them lunged for the Copy Ninja. With an intrigued sigh, Kakashi – and his book - disappeared. All that remained, aside from the two dojutsu-carrying Genin, was a large group of angry Narutos shouting at each other.

"Huh, where'd he go?"

"Is he you?"

"No I'm you, are you me or are you him?

"He's not me, but he could be you."

"Stop the jutsu! He's the one who won't disappear!"

"Good idea!"

"N-N- N- Naruto…" Hinata tried to call a word out to him, but it was too late. Naruto cancelled the jutsu, and in a puff of smoke, all of the clones disappeared.

"Huh?" he asked.

"He's in the -," Hinata started to call out, before Kakashi gracefully landed on Naruto's shoulders, driving him into the ground, and flipping back.

"I'll tell you what I told Sasuke," the silver-haired Jonin started to lecture. "Ninja Fighting Lesson Three: Ninjutsu. Use your head when you use a jutsu, or your opponent will use it against you."

"Tree…" Hinata said to herself.

"Try again," the Jonin stated, performing yet another Body Flicker to leave the area. However, in addition to the leaves usually left behind by the technique, both of the bells were lying on the ground, the ends of their strings apparently having come undone.

"Ha, he dropped them!" Naruto happily exclaimed as he darted towards the bells.

"W-w-wait!" Hinata cried out, but Naruto's foot stepped into the trap set out for him. The bells disappeared in a puff of smoke, and the shinobi's charge was cut short as a rope snare suspended him upside down.

"Damn it, I'll get you for this!" Naruto fought and struggled with the trap around his ankle, unable to free himself.

'_Naruto doesn't know how to escape?_' Hinata thought to herself. She had no idea how he could spend so many years at the academy without picking up such a basic skill. Still, she had to help, she found where the rope was tied off, and raced towards it so she could cut him down. When she was only a step away from the knot, a second trap that was hidden away caught her, and soon she was hanging upside down as well, a few yards away from Naruto.

"You seem to have fallen for some rather obvious traps," Kakashi said as he appeared below the two hanging ninja. His nose was once again buried into his orange book. "You cannot accept things at face value; a ninja must read underneath the underneath. What are they teaching you at the Academy these days?" He crouched down, and with another use of the Body Flicker, was gone.

"Damn you!" the orange-haired youth called out as he reached into his kunai pouch. He used one of the daggers to cut himself out of the trap, as Hinata seemed to be trying to say something.

"N-n-nooooo!" She was too late. She let out a gasp and winced as she brought her hands up to her eyes. She covered her pale orbs as Naruto fell down onto the explosive note she had noticed.

"Shit!" Naruto growled out as the note detonated. Fortunately for the jinchuriki, the note was severely underpowered, merely launching him into the lake instead of doing permanent damage. He climbed out of the water, just in time for Kakashi's hand to tightly grip his shoulder. "Shit…" he said again.

Before he knew it, he was tied to one of the posts. Up above, Hinata was still hanging from the rope trap as Sasuke struggled with his partial burial. Kakashi was sitting on another of the posts, flipping the page of his book. "Well," he told them. "There's no reason to continue the test, the results are clear."

All three students glanced at him in surprise. Naruto spoke up first. "You mean…."

"Yup," Kakashi replied. "You all fail."

"WHAT? WHY? Time's not even up!" Naruto yelled.

"The reason you fail is because the three of you are punks who don't deserve to be ninja. You don't even understand the answer to this test."

"Answer?" all three asked in unison.

"Come on, what's the answer?" Naruto shouted. "You're a sensei; you're supposed to teach us stuff we don't know. Teach us _this_ stuff!"

"It's simple. The answer," Kakashi stated grimly, "is teamwork."

The trio looked at him in stunned silence, before Sasuke spoke up. "How can you expect teamwork when one of us is going to fail?"

"That's exactly the point," the Copy Ninja barked at him. "This test is designed to make you fight against each other. The whole reason for it is to see if you can forget about your own personal gain, and be willing to work with each other.

"Sasuke, you have no inclination to work with others. You think that they'll only get in your way.

"Naruto, your stubbornness and refusal to listen made every situation you were in worse. You constantly ran off on your own without thinking about your teammates.

"Hinata, you have no self-confidence. You're much faster and more observant than these two, and could have gotten them out of trouble, but you've been holding yourself back the entire time. You never tried to attack me because you thought Naruto and Sasuke were better than you. You didn't even try to use a single jutsu. And you _still_ haven't bothered to get yourself out of that trap.

"The most important part of being on a ninja team, is _team_work. Actions that disrupt the team could cost you your lives, or put your team in danger. Allow me to demonstrate." The masked Jonin took out a kunai, and held it up to Naruto's throat. The young prankster visibly gulped as he felt the press of the cold metal against his skin. "Hinata, free yourself and kill Sasuke or Naruto dies."

Hinata froze, but Kakashi put the kunai away before she could properly respond. "Do you understand now? If one of you is taken hostage, you are _all_ put into an impossible situation, one where you can all die."

He took a step over to a square stone with names carved onto the front, where he placed a hand upon it. "As ninja, your lives are always at risk. These are the names of ninja who have died in service to this village. My best friend's name is here on this memorial. Being a ninja means that on every mission you put away your own differences for the good of your team.

"You have one more chance to learn how to work as a team. I'll be standing over… there." With a scattering of leaves, Kakashi disappeared, and had Body Flickered his way to the other side of the field, his face buried in the orange book again.

The three were contemplatively quiet for nearly a minute. Eventually, Hinata used the Rope Escape Jutsu to let herself down and went to where Naruto was tied, freeing him in a few seconds with a Gentle Fist strike that undid the ropes. After some grumbling from Naruto, the two of them also managed to dig Sasuke out enough for him to wriggle free.

"Fine, he wants teamwork, we'll give it to him," Naruto hissed out. "I'll distract him, and you guys can sneak up behind him and pound his head in."

"B-b-but Naruto," Hinata said with a frown. "You w-w-won't get a bell. You'll… you'll… you'll _fail_." Even saying that word broke her heart. It had only been one day and a few hours since her life had changed, and now it was all going to go away?

"Fuck that guy, I don't care if he fails me," Naruto responded hastily, and Hinata blushed at his colorful language. "You can have my bell, Hinata, since this bastard's going to steal the other one anyway." He pointed at Sasuke, before resuming. "If that Cyclops thinks I'm scared of failing, he's got another thing coming. I've already failed the graduation exam three times, what's a fourth time going to do to me? If I have to go back to the academy for another session to get a sensei who isn't such an asshole, it'll be worth it. Right now I just want to kick his ass!"

"N-N-N-Naruto," Hinata quietly whispered to herself. She saw how Naruto had felt after he failed the third time. But somehow he was still determined to do it, throw away his future for her. She knew that he didn't realize he had done that, and was just angry at the Jonin, but it still made her feel somewhat happy. She decided to speak up. "I- I- I-I don't care about passing either! I'll go back to the academy with y-you!"

"R-really?" Naruto asked, genuinely surprised someone actually decided to go along with one of his schemes. Hinata simply nodded, her throat constricted, looking into his eyes. But before either of them could continue the discussion, Sasuke interrupted.

"I don't need a bell either, dumbass," Sasuke glared at Naruto, yet somehow, though neither Naruto nor Hinata could pinpoint exactly why, his face seemed softer than usual. "If a dead last loser like you can outsmart him, I'd be better off training on my own until they put me on a team with a competent Jonin. One who can read a clock instead of his porn collection."

"And you want revenge for him poking your ass, right?"

Sasuke sighed. "Let's just get this over with."

"Alright, we need a plan, what can we do?" Naruto said, huddling with the other two soon-to-be dropouts.

* * *

"Hey Kakashi, that's it! I've had it with your bullshit! No more games!" Naruto shouted, getting into a stance. He had approached Kakashi from the tree line, and was now in a standoff with the Jonin. At least Naruto was, as Kakashi lazily flipped the page of his book. "Time for my ultimate technique."

"Ultimate technique? You know Naruto, if I was going all out, I could have hit you with a kunai while you were talking."

"Shut up! Get ready, fool. This is a secret technique I designed to defeat the Hokage himself!"

Kakashi's left hand instinctively went up to his mask, but he stopped himself. He mentally chuckled. He had to give the kid credit, he could be convincing when he had to be. He almost believed Naruto had developed a new S-Rank jutsu. However proficient Naruto was with those shadow clones of his, though, whatever this technique was wouldn't be worth revealing his Sharingan to his students just yet. They weren't even his students yet, at least as far as they knew. And yet, he couldn't help but see Minato's face right then and there, as Naruto's eyes, with their look of utter determination, gazed right at him.

"Harem Jutsu!" the youth shouted as his hands formed the ram seal.

Suddenly a hundred blonde bombshells appeared around the Jonin. Each one was fully nude, yet they had clouds of steam obscuring their features. He cursed his lack of a dojutsu like the Byakugan right now, which could cut through the vapor with ease. In order to get a good look with his normal eye, he would have to adjust himself so that the obscuring steam was no longer in direct line of – no! He suddenly realized Naruto's ploy.

Even then, the knuckleheaded ninja was only a step away by the time Kakashi snapped back to his senses. From somewhere behind him, Sasuke's voice rang out. "KATON!" To complete the assault, Hinata contributed by raining down a storm of shuriken from a nearby tree branch - followed by her body falling out of the tree.

Hinata was a bit upset that she had fallen after seeing the female versions of Naruto. To her credit, she resisted the all-too-familiar fainting sensation, but the distraction still made her lose her balance. In their planning, he said he was going to distract Kakashi with the Shadow Clone Jutsu, he had pulled this out of nowhere. '_Harem Jutsu?'_ she thought.

Kakashi dodged the shuriken and leapt over Sasuke's fiery ninjutsu, and with a quick wind jutsu dispelled the clones. He landed behind Sasuke, and threw the boy towards Naruto. The two rolled from the impact and collided with Hinata, causing all three ninja to sprawl out on the ground. They were on their backs, looking up at Kakashi as he towered over them, cringing and bracing themselves for the incoming lesson.

"Good work, you pass."

The silver-haired Jonin was tempted to take out his Sharingan to see if the three young ninja were under a paralysis jutsu before Naruto asked the question that was on their minds. "What?"

"The test. You passed it."

"But we didn't even get the bells."

"Oh, these?" Kakashi asked, somehow radiating a smug grin through his mask as he jingled the bells. "You all passed when you decided to throw away your chance at progressing in order to defeat me – you didn't think I could hear you? I was just curious about what you guys could accomplish when you worked together."

"Haha, awesome! I'm a ninja!" Naruto exclaimed, somehow forgetting how much he had hated Kakashi a few minutes ago.

"Monday morning, be at the Administrative Entrance to the Academy at 8:00 AM," the Jonin told his new team. "I'll train you to be a team. Train yourselves in the meantime - make yourselves stronger, and it will make the team stronger. Don't be late." With that, Kakashi left as quickly as he always did. They hadn't failed like he had expected, but things had wrapped up quickly enough to let him make his movie if he hurried and skipped dinner.

Sasuke muttered something as he left, shaking his head.

Hinata once again found herself alone with the object of her affection, and once again found herself unsure of what to say. Naruto's stomach held no such reservations, as it growled loudly. "Want to get ramen to celebrate?"

Hinata nodded her head. "Yes."

"I know the best place for ramen!" he replied, giving her a thumbs up. "I'll show you where it is. Come on, let's go!" He reached down and grabbed Hinata's hand, and with a tug started racing off back into town.

He didn't look behind him, too focused on the path ahead, and missed seeing the ear-to-ear grin on Hinata's scarlet-tinted face.

* * *

"Good evening, Naruto," Ayame greeted the knuckleheaded ninja as he pulled back the curtain to enter the Ichiraku ramen stand. However, the ramen girl saw Naruto was pulling someone along in his other hand. Her gaze followed his arm, crossed the joined hands, and went up, revealing a shy-faced kunoichi she had never seen before.

She glanced at Hinata, her brow furrowed in thought, and her eyes spending extra time looking at the girl's forehead. What interested her was actually on the Hyuuga's forehead, as she noticed the goggles she wore on her forehead. Her gaze shifted over to Naruto, then back to Hinata, and a mischievous grin started to curl up the sides of her mouth. Hinata slightly flinched at the deep gaze, and gulped under the judgmental pressure Ayame seemed to be exerting. After what felt like hours, the moment passed, and the young woman behind the counter continued smiling and speaking as if nothing had happened. "Who's your friend? And why haven't you brought her around before?"

"Oh, this is Hinata," Naruto said, sitting down in front of her and pulling the Hyuuga into the stool next to him, letting go of her hands to rest them on the counter. "She's on my ninja team now."

"You graduated, Naruto? And you're even on a team?" Ayame asked, "Then how come you're only telling me now?"

"I'm sorry!' Naruto apologized quickly, clapping his hands in front of his face and giving a quick bow. "It was only a couple days ago. Iruka took me out to a restaurant he knows when I graduated, and I was busy yesterday developing my Hare – with training."

Ayame grinned and gave a light chuckle. "I'm just teasing you Naruto, I can't stay mad at you." She turned towards Hinata and leaned over the counter. "It's nice to see Naruto making friends his own age, especially a girl. Iruka's a good guy, but it's nice to see another woman here every now and then."

Hinata swallowed the lump in her throat, and nodded.

"Yeah, we're probably gonna be here a whole bunch!" Naruto exclaimed. "Now we're going to be ninjas and spending a lot of time training for important missions. Then we'll have enough money to be here all the time."

After that, Naruto ordered two large bowls of ramen, while Hinata asked for a single, regular-sized portion. The two ninja were left alone to pass the time away with small talk, as Ayame went back to help her father in the kitchen. Naruto was telling Hinata about how he had discovered the perfect blend of paint - one that would stick to rough, uneven stone of the Hokage Monument - when Ayame brought out their meals. She went right back to the kitchen to help clean dishes, and they ate in silence.

Naruto finished first, with Hinata still having half of her bowl to go. He put his elbows on the counter and rested his chin on his fists as he looked towards Hinata. It looked like he was thinking about something, and when Hinata had almost finished her bowl, she decided to ask him what was wrong. Her decision was ultimately irrelevant, as he spoke up, and she sighed in relief, picking up the last bit of ramen. "Hey… Hinata?" he asked quietly, in a tone that sounded far more serious than the one he usually used.

"Y-yes?" Hinata replied, wondering what could make the normally loudmouthed ninja sound so... normal.

"When I found you in the Genjutsu, you asked if I was alive. Did he make you think I was dead?"

Hinata's hand stopped, her ramen hanging off of her chopsticks. "Ummmmmm…. Well h-h-he, he… you…." she wasn't sure what she was saying at this point, simply trying to fill the dead air with some sort of noise. Her mind was racing, trying to think of some way to phrase things, but ultimately, she settled for a quiet, one-word response. "Yes."

"Why?" he asked. "And why were you crying? No one's ever cried for me before, except Iruka."

"I…" Hinata tried to think of a way to word it. Somehow, 'I've loved you for years and stalked you around town and written dozen of diaries about you and me' on the second day seemed a bit too forward. She also couldn't bring herself to say it just yet, anyway. Soon, though. Maybe in a few weeks, once she'd managed to get herself into his life some more. Kakashi seemed like he would be rather hands-off with his teaching, and unless Sasuke had a sudden personality shift, he wouldn't want anything to do with them. Fresh Genin only did D-rank missions, so even if they did one every day that still left dozens of hours per week free. As long as she could keep coming up with reasons to do things with him, it would just be her and Naruto for weeks. Months, even, since the Chunin exams were far off. And since it wasn't common for rookies to participate until at least a year or two after graduating…. That could even mean she would be able to spend years with him. '_Years of spending time with Naruto…._'

She stopped her train of thought before it got out of hand, and finalized her response. "You're my f-friend, Naruto. My, m-my only real friend. And I didn't want to, to, to lose, _to lose you_ so soon and be alone again."

"What?" Naruto replied, confused. "But you have tons of friends and a big clan, and we've only been on the same team for two days. You're not alone."

Hinata shook her head. "I don't have any friends, and my family doesn't spend time with me. Sometimes I talk to my cousin's teammates if they come to pick him up, they're nice but they always have to leave soon."

"But you have tons of friends! You're always with all of the other girls during lunch. I've seen you guys together at the academy plenty of times before."

"A-a-are Choji, Shikamaru, and Kiba your friends?"

"Huh? No, why would you think that?" Naruto replied. "I barely know them. Shikamaru and Choji don't really talk to me, and Kiba's does but it's because he's an asshole and he's always pissed at me. The only time I'm with them is when Iruka's punishing us, or if we're skipping class to go to the kunai… practice… course…." He slowed down as Hinata looked at him expectantly, her nearly-white eyes gazing into his own blue irises as she gently nodded her head. "Oh… I'm sorry…" he quietly stated. "I… I thought…."

Naruto looked at Hinata's face, for the first time really looking at her actively, instead of how he passively overlooked everyone. He had never seen her eyes before yesterday in the classroom, yet he realized he had known them all his life. He saw them every morning in the mirror, before he put on the façade of Naruto the prankster. They were the eyes of someone who had been alone their whole life. Eyes that had never felt acceptance. Eyes that longed for someone to acknowledge them. Eyes that wanted to find someone who cared about their existence.

She managed to hide them from everyone else just as well as he did, but after years of doing the exact same thing he could identify those eyes in a heartbeat. It was obvious to him now, the only reason he'd never noticed was because he was too willing to accept that everyone else was perfectly fine. Maybe this was what Kakashi had meant about looking underneath the underneath. First Iruka, then Konohamaru, and now Hinata. She was just as lonely as he was. Even if she wasn't hated for carrying around the Nine-Tails, she wasn't loved either. Thinking about it, he made a decision.

"Alright," he said. "We can't change the past, but we're _not_ alone anymore. We're friends, we're a team," he decided to avoid ruining his thought process by bringing up the fact that, yes, technically their team included a certain Uchiha. "We can show Kakashi we're not punks! We can prove to him and everyone else that we deserve to be ninja."

"Y-Y-Yeah!" Hinata agreed. "D-d-d-do you want to t-t-t-train, t-t-tomorrow?"

"YEAH!" Naruto eagerly stated. "We can train and get better." He frowned as he thought hard about training. "But… where?"

"O-o-okay," Hinata told him, trying to muster up the courage to continue. "I c-c-c-could, I could um, I could b-b-bring b-breakfast again tomorrow, and we can g-go to the t-t-training grounds."

"Really?" Naruto licked his lips as he remembered breakfast. But he couldn't help but feel he forgot something. That's right; she left the breakfast container at his apartment. "Oh man, you left your box at my place, we gotta go get it!" He grabbed her hand for another dead sprint through town, but this time she pulled back, stopping him in his tracks when he felt the unexpected resistance.

"W-w-wait. N-Naruto!"

"Huh?"

"We h-have to pay."

"Oh, heh. Right…." Naruto pulled out Gama-chan, and started to count out enough ryo to cover the bill. When he looked over at Hinata, he noticed her wallet looked identical to his, but in a shade of pink. "Hey, you have a toad wallet too?"

"Oh," Hinata said, blushing deeply. "I g-g-guess we must s-s-shop at the s-s-same s-s-stores."

"Guess so," Naruto responded. He called out to the kitchen. "Hey Ayame! Can you give us our tabs?"

"Naruto?" Ayame asked with a hint of confusion, as well as concern, as she stepped out of the kitchen. "You've been coming here forever, how can you forget what your usual costs?"

"No, it's not that, I know how much I owe, but…" he smiled a sheepish grin as he continued. "I've never ordered a regular-sized bowl before so you have to tell Hinata yourself."

"Oh," Ayame said, and gave a gentle giggle. "It's alright; it's on the house tonight. Consider it my graduation present for you guys." She looked at Hinata with a playful grin. "Plus you've given us another customer."

"Thanks Ayame!"

"T-t-thank you," the Hyuuga added with a bow before the two ninja left.

For the next several minutes, Hinata found herself giggling as she raced Naruto back to his apartment. The orange-haired boy was surprised she was able to keep up, even when he went all out and used his secret shortcuts and top speed. When they finally arrived, Naruto's questions about how she was so fast were met by crimson cheeks and an incomprehensible response, and the Hyuuga heiress left after hurriedly retrieving her lunch box.

For the second time in just as many days, the blue-haired kunoichi ran home and quickly drifted off to sleep, excited for what tomorrow would bring.


	3. Training

**Chapter 3: Training**

**I'll answer some questions from the reviews here:**

**Regarding canon: This will indeed wind up being far different from canon the further along it goes. I don't want to spoil things, but I can give a quick idea of what to expect, at least generally. Since in the manga Team 7 basically sat on their thumbs for months until the Chunin exam, with just one C-rank mission to shake things up, things will already be pretty different to start with. Then for the Chunin Exams, that was a pretty crucial part of the series, and it'll still happen here too, but it'll be quite different instead of just being a copy of the canon one where I replace every instance of 'Sakura' with 'Hinata'. Plus I bet you all want to see the fights of the finals/semi-finals (or at least the ones that are interesting). I'll try to make it quick and not take up a ton of time or drag it out like most fics do; I suspect if I did your eyes would bleed over. **

**Regarding Naruto's clothes: ****_I_**** personally didn't bash Naruto's outfit, Kakashi did, since he was explicitly trying to piss him off by saying inflammatory things. I like the orange theme and don't plan on removing Naruto's signature color.**

**Regarding power levels: I find stories where Naruto becomes the most powerful ninja around in a short span of time and can beat anyone easily quite boring. Overcoming obstacles is much more satisfying when it's hard-fought and there's a sense of risk, while failure introduces plots and interesting things that otherwise wouldn't be possible.**

**And a question for you: Do you prefer if I call it the Henge or the Transformation? I've been trying to use mostly English names for jutsu so far, because it will make it far easier for me to use English when I make up names for new jutsu, but I'm so used to reading 'Henge'.**

* * *

"So where are we going to train?" Naruto asked Hinata as they ate breakfast. Like yesterday, she had shown up in the morning with two boxes, and they were talking about their plans for the day. "The Academy's using all of their extra rooms for student orientation and exams so we can't go there."

"W-w-we have the whole Third Training Ground to o-o-ourselves, Naruto," Hinata softly replied.

"We do?"

Hinata nodded. "Anyone can use the public training grounds, but each ninja team gets their own p-p-private training ground. It's reserved j-just for u-u-us."

"That's ours? I didn't know that. Man," Naruto sheepishly admitted. "I probably would have never even gone back there. But that place was huge; it had a river, a lake, that field, and half a forest. They really give one to each team?"

"N-N-No, a lot of them are smaller. We got l-lucky. The first fifty training grounds are usually reserved for a-advanced training and exams. Team Gai has Training Ground 73; that one's not very big."

"Who?"

"O-oh, um, the team my cousin's on."

"Who's your cousin? I don't think I've met them."

"H-h-his name is N-N-Neji…" Hinata said, not knowing how to continue, and nervously adjusting her goggles. This was not a topic she enjoyed discussing. She stood up, deciding to change the subject. "L-l-let's go before it gets l-l-late."

"Right!" Naruto excitedly replied at the prospect of getting stronger.

* * *

Hinata and Naruto approached the last tree blocking their view of the training ground's central field. Once they found a spot there to place their lunch, they would start their training in earnest. What their plan had not accounted for was Kakashi, who was seated in front of the Memorial Stone. He was seemingly lost in thought, with one hand resting on the top corner, while his lone eye gazed at the names carved into the stone slab.

They slowly approached him, neither one wanting to break the eerie sense of veneration Kakashi was emitting. After a minute of carefully advancing towards him, the two were standing on either side of him – Naruto to his right, Hinata to his left – and struggling to think of what to say that wouldn't upset their new sensei.

"Yo."

Both Genin fought hard against the urge to fall over as Kakashi greeted them.

The Jonin gave a light laugh at their reaction. "It's okay, don't mind me."

"B-b-b-but," Hinata stammered out. "Is it r-r-really okay to train here? On their mem-memorial"

"This used to be my team's training ground. I put a memorial to people I knew here, and the Third and Fourth never assigned the area to anyone else but me. I think they would like knowing that a new generation is honoring them by learning here. Besides, I wouldn't have tested you and all my previous teams here if it wasn't okay."

"Okay," Naruto declared. "If we're supposed to be honoring these people, who were they?" The blonde read off the first name on the wall. "Obito Uchiha, who was that guy?"

"He…" Kakashi started, wondering if it would be wise to tell them. But if they were going to be training here, then they deserved to know. "He was my teammate, and my best friend. He died a long time ago, in order to teach me the most important thing about being a ninja."

"Teamwork?" Naruto asked.

"No, my sensei taught me that. Obito taught me something more. I used to think that those who break the rules of the ninja world are trash. Even today, most of the village still thinks like that. He showed me how wrong I was. He showed me that those who don't protect their friends are worse than trash, and he made sure that even after he was gone, I would never forget that lesson."

"S-s-so yesterday?" Hinata half-asked, suspecting she already knew the answer after the first few syllables left her mouth.

"Yes," Kakashi answered. "Understanding that is what being a ninja is about."

"Rin Nohara," Naruto continued by reading the name below Obito's.

"She was also my teammate," Kakashi slowly stated as he exhaled. "She was… someone special."

Hinata put a hand on Kakashi's and gave him a soft nod, which he returned. Naruto had mostly forgotten about the subject, as he had noticed the next name. The Jonin remembered what he had carved there after that terrible night, seventeen years ago, but it was too late to prevent him from reading it.

"Kushina Uzu… Uzumaki!? Kakashi, you knew another Uzumaki?" Naruto asked the masked shinobi eagerly.

"I… yes," Kakashi said after a moment of pause. "She… she was your mother."

Hinata let out an audible gasp and covered her mouth with her hands.

"You knew my mom?" Naruto asked.

Kakashi slowly nodded.

"Did… did you know my dad, too? Do you know who my parents were?"

"She never said who he was, although she mentioned he had died," Kakashi finally replied, not wanting to reveal an S-rank secret right now, especially not one this dangerous. "But she did say that he was the only ninja that believed in her, who made her feel like she could reach out and grab her dreams."

"Oh…." Naruto replied. "What were her dreams? Can you tell me any more about her? What was she like?"

"I didn't know her for very long; I was barely older than you two back then. But anyone who met her knew she was always smiling. Smiling and talking. When you talked to her, you couldn't help but smile back. She liked to pull pranks and eat ramen, and refused to ever give up when she put her mind to something. And her dream was to eventually be the Hokage."

Naruto's eyes watered as Kakashi spoke, and the three were silent for a few minutes. Hinata's eyes were even moister than her teammate's, but growing up in a household where everyone had superhuman detection skills, she had learned how to cry quietly and discreetly. She knew Naruto was an orphan, but she had never realized just _how much_ of an orphan he actually was. He had never met his parents, and he didn't even know his own mother's name until someone who had been a complete stranger until two days ago told him. She was always sad when she thought about her own mother's death, but the woman hadn't passed away until Hinata was already a young girl; she had plenty of pleasant memories that made her happy when she remembered all of the time they had spent together.

Her mother's picture was on her nightstand, and was always the first thing she saw in the morning, and the last face she saw at night. Sitting on her bed and looking at that image of her mother cradling her in her arms only hours after she was born, that always made Hinata feel like she could still feel her mother's warmth. There was also an entire album of precious photos they had taken, which she had looked through so many times she could remember every detail on every photo even now. She kept every single flower they had ever pressed, and though their scents had long since faded, she still liked to close her eyes and pretend she could smell her mother's fragrance. She smelled like sunflowers and cinnamon. All of those thoughts only made her heart tighten as she recalled what Naruto's pictures in his apartment were of – ramen and all four of the Hokage.

Naruto eventually broke the silence by trying to asking the question he hadn't wondered about in years. "She's… she's on the stone."

The Jonin nodded and collected his thoughts for a few moments. "She died… shortly… after you were born. It was an important secret mission. I wasn't there, but they say she saved the lives of many of the ninja in the village."

"Thanks, Kakashi," Naruto finally said, regaining himself enough to stand up again and continue looking at the stone. "I'm not going to disappoint her. Since she's gone, I'll have to be the Hokage for her. That's a promise, you can believe it."

As Naruto looked at the fourth name on the Memorial Stone, he blinked rapidly several times, looked back at Kakashi, focused again on the name, and reread it a few more times to be sure. "Minato Namikaze? You knew the Fourth Hokage?"

Hinata smiled. The Fourth was Naruto's hero, and she could already see the Genin's usual smile and pleasant demeanor returning.

"I did," Kakashi answered. "But he wasn't always the Hokage. He was a Jonin before that, and he was my sensei."

"WHAT?" Naruto shouted. Hinata's eyes widened to the size of saucers at his outburst. He was definitely back to normal. "You trained with the Fourth Hokage?"

Kakashi nodded, this time much quicker than before. "He tied me to that post when I tried to take him on alone, and then taught me about teamwork when my teammates snuck me a boxed lunch even after he threated to fail them. But he had to go on dangerous missions by himself during the last war, so he wound up leaving me in charge of our squad, and he went on to be the hero of that war. The Third respected him so much he stepped down to make him the new Hokage. There's never been anyone like him since then, and the Third never found anyone worthy of being Minato's successor."

Kakashi noticed that the mention of the Fourth's death was starting to chip away at Naruto's grin again, and he changed the subject. "Hey, no need to spend the entire morning thinking of the dead. What are you two doing here? Training?"

"Yup!" Naruto proudly stated. "We're going to train all day."

"You're pretty dedicated if you're here before eight."

"U-u-u-um, K-K-K-Kakashi," Hinata tried to collect herself as she spoke. "I-i-i-it's after n-n-n-nine."

For a rather long moment, Kakashi stared at the Hyuga, his lone eye blinking. He pulled a clock out from his bag, and focused on it in absolute silence for several seconds.

"Bye," the Jonin suddenly said, and before either of the young Genin could reply, the Copy Ninja had vanished, a pile of leaves now present where he had been sitting a moment ago.

After processing what they had learned for a few moments, the two started their training.

* * *

"I know four jutsu. The Henge, the Shadow Clone Jutsu, the Sexy Jutsu, and the Harem Jutsu," Naruto told Hinata, not noticing the increasing blush on her cheeks as he mentioned the last two. "Everyone knows the Henge, and you said yesterday that you can't learn how to make shadow clones. Do you want to learn the Se-"

"Nooooooo!" Hinata squealed, hiding most of her face in her jacket. Only her eye brows, the goggles above, and her short blue hair were visible. "W-w-w-why d-d-d-don't we practice something e-e-else."

"Okay. Like what?"

"W-wait, Naruto. Why did you mention the Henge? How many of the jutsu from the Academy do you know?"

"Well…" the shinobi gave her a toothy smile.

* * *

"Something got you down, Naruto?" Teuchi asked the orange-clad shinobi as he and Hinata sat down at the ramen stand. The young man wore a frustrated look on his face instead of his usual smile.

"No," Naruto grumbled out. "I'm just angry. I spent all day training, and didn't master any new jutsu that I tried. I don't think I did anything other than waste Hinata's time."

"Oh, so this is the Hinata that Ayame told me about?" the older man asked rhetorically. "Nice to meet you."

"N-nice to meet you too."

The ramen chef gave a hearty chuckle. "Naruto, if I know you, you'll get it eventually. I've had a lot of ninja stop by my stand over the years, and I'll tell you this: I've never seen anyone who tries as hard as you do. Half of them were downright lazy. Just keep trying your best and I'm sure you'll turn out fine. Now how about some ramen? My butcher friend stopped by today with some of that special pork you like."

"Really?" Naruto inquired as his smile widened. "Teuchi, give me three bowls. Hinata, you have to order some, it's the best."

* * *

The next few days went much like their first day of training, with them establishing a pattern of Hinata showing Naruto another basic skill, the shinobi cursing for a few hours, and then moving on to the next one to try his luck.

"Hey, can you teach me that thing you did to escape the rope during the test?" Naruto asked, after showing Hinata that he couldn't manage to make a standard clone.

"I g-guess we can stop trying Genjutsu for now."

Naruto pulled a chain out of his pouch. "Cool. We can take turns tying each other up."

"O-o-okay!" the kunoichi agreed a bit too quickly.

* * *

Hinata, Naruto, and Sasuke sat on a bench outside of the Academy with their faces looking tired, bored, and emotionless, respectively.

"Yo," Kakashi told them as he appeared out of nowhere in front of the trio.

"Damn it, you're three hours late!" Naruto shouted at the Jonin. "We waited all morning for you, it's almost time for lunch. I might as well have stayed home or trained."

"But then you'd miss out on your mission."

Almost immediately, Naruto's face inverted, now displaying a wide grin. "A mission? This is going to be awesome!"

* * *

"That sucked," Naruto grumbled as the three Genin walked out of the Academy, the Jonin leading them. They had spent the last four hours completing their first mission – collecting honey for a village clan that specialized in breeding bees.

"Naruto, ninja are integral members of the village," Kakashi told him as they approached the gate. "It's thanks to all of your hard work that the honey harvest wasn't lost."

"Yeah…" Naruto agreed, nursing a group of stings on his left cheek that hadn't fully healed yet. He just _knew_ that the head beekeeper had given him that faulty vaporizer on purpose, but there was no way to prove it. "I thought we'd be doing something like guarding a princess from a team of enemy ninja."

Kakashi chuckled, "You'll have to get stronger first, before the three of you get trusted to a mission like that. As Genin, these first few months will be spent on D-rank missions that build up your teamwork. We'll do one every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, at the same time as today."

"That's bullshit, I want to do something more fun."

"Don't be in such a hurry," Kakashi mentioned as he stopped, turned around, and bent over to clasp the blonde shinobi's shoulder and meet the boy's gaze. "Right now you three have the most important mission of all: Get stronger. If you want to prove you're ready for a C-rank mission, then you need to show that you're willing to put in the time it takes to prepare yourself for it."

"It would be easier if you actually taught us something."

Kakashi let out a sigh, and released his grip on Naruto. "Right now the three of you haven't developed your skills enough to be taught higher level techniques and jutsus. You don't use what you already know properly. It would be irresponsible and dangerous to teach you something more powerful."

"Come on, Kakashi," Naruto began to complain, but stopped as the Jonin shook his head.

"Not yet. You have to improve first."

The Jonin took a step back, widened his stance, and brought his hands down in front of him. His left hand grabbed his right wrist tightly, and he channeled chakra into his palm. In an instant, a ball of white lightning appeared in his grasp. Thousands of sparks shot off of it, and it emitted an ever-increasing screeching noise like a flock of birds.

The three Genin looked at the sphere of energy with amazement, and after Kakashi cancelled the jutsu they blinked several times as they gazed at his hand.

"That jutsu is one that I made, and no one else in the village can teach it to you," the Jonin began to say in his casual, yet lecturing, voice. "It shapes chakra into lightning and requires that you have practice and skill in all three categories of chakra usage – capacity, shape, and control. First, it requires a large amount of chakra, so you need a high enough chakra capacity to use it without killing yourself. Next, you have to know how to build and shape your chakra, so you don't kill yourself by ripping open your chakra pathways. Third, you need perfect chakra control, so you don't kill yourself by letting the jutsu's chakra explode in your hands. Notice a pattern?"

"You think we're so weak we'd kill ourselves just trying to use a jutsu?" Sasuke asked with hint of disgust.

"Exactly," Kakashi agreed with a cheerful tone in his voice, surprising even the Uchiha. "If you want to prove me wrong, keep training your bodies and minds. Push your muscles to their limits and you'll improve not only your chakra capacity, but your Taijutsu skills. Practice the jutsu you do know until you can use them in your sleep, underwater, upside down, with your hands behind your back, and on the move. Practice them until you have perfect control and shaping skills with your chakra. You do that, and maybe I'll teach you that jutsu you just saw, or something just as cool…."

Naruto, of course, was grinning like always, but even Hinata and Sasuke could not help but smile at the idea of being able to learn such a powerful technique.

"…in a couple of years."

"WHAT?" Naruto shouted.

"Oh, look at the time, I have an elderly woman to assist." the Copy Ninja stated as he disappeared.

"God damn it!" Naruto exclaimed and kicked a pebble on the ground.

Sasuke balled his hands up into tight fists, gave a determined frown, and ran off, leaving the other two Genin alone.

"A couple of years?" Naruto asked Hinata.

"D-d-don't worry, Naruto," she gently told him. "Y-y-you can do it. I know you can."

"Thanks, Hinata," Naruto replied. He looked at the check in his hand and grinned. "That mission might have sucked, but at least we got paid. I can buy a lot of ramen with this."

* * *

The day after their fifth mission, Hinata and Naruto were once again at Training Ground 3. This time, however, Hinata had an idea about what to do. She had been unable to sleep, thoughts of Naruto in her head, but at around 4AM she figured out that she knew something that could help.

"N-N-Naruto, let's work on chakra control today."

"Chakra control?"

Hinata nodded. "M-maybe if you work on improving your chakra control first, then it will be easier to learn new jutsu."

"But how am I supposed to improve my chakra control?"

"I u-u-used to train at h-home, before… um… before I couldn't anymore… so I know a skill that we can work on. Normally you learn it once you have the other skills down b-but I think it's worth a shot."

"Really? You're gonna teach me a new technique? You rock, Hinata!"

Hinata had gotten used to Naruto's positive outbursts over the last few days, and her fainting spells were now much rarer than before, so she was able to take his praise without staggering. But it also saddened her when she remembered that he tended to say those things far too often about such common things she took for granted. She nodded a silent response.

"What is it?"

Hinata walked up to one of the nearby trees, and took a deep breath. Raising her right foot, she planted it onto the bark, and cemented it in place with her chakra. She repeated that for her left foot, and took a few more steps up the trunk.

"HOLY SHIT!" Naruto yelled out. "You're walking up that tree! How are you doing that?"

The kunoichi jumped down before she lost concentration, and spoke up. "I-i-it's a chakra control exercise. You have practice putting the exact amount of chakra in your feet to stick to the tree, and then maintain it to stay in place. It's difficult but it – NARUTO!"

As she was speaking, Naruto had eagerly approached the tree and placed his foot on it, sending out chakra. The next thing he knew, his knee was in his eye socket and it felt like his leg had been brutally ripped out of place.

"NARUTO!" Hinata called out, racing over to where Naruto had fallen. He had kneed himself so hard that he was now half-a-dozen steps away from her.

"I'm fine, I'm fine," Naruto grumbled out as he rolled over and brought himself up again. His leg still felt like it was on fire, but it seemed like the initially massive outburst of pain was only temporary. He brought his hands up to his eye and rubbed it a bit, until he could force it to blink again.

"Naruto, how much chakra did you use?"

"I don't know; I just sent some out."

"Byakugan," Hinata said, activating her dojutsu. "Try it again, this time I'll look at your chakra flow. Use as little chakra as you can."

"Sure," Naruto replied, heading to the tree again. He noticed that there was a large crack in the trunk from his last attempt, and did a quarter-turn around the tree. From his new position, he grunted as he put his foot on the bark, and tried to focus. "Okay, are you watching?"

"Y-y-yes," Hinata replied. She stood right next to him and gave soft nod.

"Here I go." Using as little chakra as he could, he sent energy to his foot again, to mostly similar results. This time, he cut his lip as his knee sandwiched it in-between his teeth, but managed to push his leg down with his hands to minimize the blow. "Ugh," he said, standing up. "See anything good?"

Hinata nodded, then suddenly stopped as she thought about his question, and resumed nodding. "Y-your chakra pathways tried to constrict the flow, but you sent so much chakra down your leg that by the time it reached your foot, they couldn't contain the power and let it all through."

"Damn."

"Oh," Hinata gasped, her eyes widening as an idea came to her. "I know. You can use your s-shadow clones to make training easier."

"Shadow clones? What good will that do?"

"When you make a clone, you use a lot of your chakra and put it into them. So if you make four clones, then most of your chakra is gone until they return. If you can practice with smaller amounts of chakra, then you can make fewer clones as you get better, until you can do it with your normal chakra capacity.

"Wow, that's really smart, Hinata," he told her, turning around in time to miss the blush that appeared on her face.

"Shadow Clone Jutsu!" he said, making seven clones appear. "Uhh…" he stated as he mentally counted the number of shadow clones. "You're more than four…. Whatever, just get out of the way you guys, I'm trying something."

He walked up to the tree for the third time, and pressed his foot against it once again. "I can do this. Third time's the charm." He sent a little bit of chakra into his foot.

The seven Naruto clones erupted into laughter as the original was sent flying.

"HEY! Screw you guys!" Naruto yelled at the shadow clones of himself. He dispelled them, and brought his hands up in a ram seal. "Multi Shadow Clone Jutsu!"

All around her, Hinata was surrounded by Narutos. There was a Naruto in front of her, a Naruto behind her, Narutos to her left and right, Narutos hanging from a branch above her. She couldn't find a branch or bush that didn't have a copy of the loudmouthed ninja. _'I'm surrounded by Narutos.'_ She ducked her cheeks into her jacket and took a deep breath.

"Go away you guys, kill some time, just don't go into the village and get me into trouble or get yourselves popped. I'm going to practice and I don't want your chakra coming back in the middle of things. Got it?"

A loud cacophony of Naruto voices grumbled, mumbled, complained and bickered as they started to leave. All the while, Hinata continued to steady herself, regulating her breathing to stay conscious.

"Hey, you too!" the original shouted at a few clones who had refused to leave, staring them down and issuing a few threats until they finally complied.

Now that he only had a sliver of his normal chakra levels, the blonde shinobi no longer injured himself trying to climb the tree, nor did he crack the wood so dramatically, but that did not make it any easier. Having less chakra solved one issue, but his poor control meant that he was now encountering another problem: He couldn't use the right amount of chakra, or form it evenly on his feet. He tried jumping at the tree, running starts, climbing backwards, and using both feet at once to see if that had any effect on his ability, to no avail. Over the course of the next three hours he was able to at least form enough chakra to feel a sticking feeling between his foot and the tree, but not enough to support his weight, and it only lasted for a few seconds before he lost concentration.

"M-m-m-maybe we should eat lunch," Hinata placated, starting to head towards where she had left their lunch. "It took me a long time to learn how to do this, and it's hard to focus when you're hungry."

"I guess," Naruto mumbled, punching the tree that was slowly becoming the bane of his existence. "It's just that it doesn't even feel like I'm improving." He put his hand up in front of his chest and made a seal to cancel all of the clones he had made. That was when the pain hit.

"GRAHHHHH!" the orange-clad shinobi shouted as he clawed at his temples and rolled on the ground, continuing to yell unintelligibly until he finally stopped moving, lying face down in the grass.

"NARUTO?" Hinata shouted, and ran back as fast as her legs could carry her. "Naruto, what's wrong? Naruto, Naruto, wake up!" She put her hands on his shoulders and rolled him over, then continued to shout his name as she shook him, but he gave her no reaction. Tears formed in her eyes for the next few seconds as he continued to lay there, irresponsive. Just as she was about to stand up to try and find help, he opened his eyes.

"Damn it, my head…" he groaned as he sat himself up, inadvertently putting himself chest-to-chest with his training partner.

"Naruto!" Hinata repeated, hugging him tightly before she realized what she was doing. She let go quickly and sat back, looking at his head. It didn't look like he was injured – aside, of course, from what he had done to himself the first few times he climbed the tree. "What happened to you?" she choked out.

"Huh, what am I doing here - hey, hey, don't cry, I'm alright. See?" Naruto hopped up and gave her a thumbs-up before a dizzy spell hit him. Just as quickly as he had risen, he fell onto his hands and knees and vomited onto the grass.

"You're not okay, I think you might have used too much chakra," the pale-eyed Genin softly told him, lightly patting his back. "Byakugan ." With her dojutsu activated again, Hinata looked at the other ninja's chakra, and was surprised to see nothing out of place.

"No, I'm feeling a lot better now," the blonde shinobi assured her as he stood up again and started to move. "I think I was just tired using all that chakra. I'll be fine after lunch."

"O-okay…" she half-heartedly agreed, and walked after him. She couldn't stop remembering that brief moment when she had embraced him as they ate.

Once they finished eating, Naruto began to form the ram seal, but Hinata stopped him before he could use the jutsu.

"I-I-I don't think you should use all that chakra again, after what happened."

"But you heard what Kakashi said, we have to push ourselves to get stronger."

"B-but he meant practicing, not using so much chakra you hurt yourself."

"I've made way more clones before," Naruto started. "Here, I'll only make fifty this time. Okay?"

Hinata nodded softly.

"Multi Shadow Clone Jutsu!"

Sending off the clones once again, Naruto approached the tree to start the second half of that day's training. Much to his surprise, his foot stuck to the bark for several seconds before he lost control and fell onto his head.

"Hey! Hey! I did it!" he excitedly declared.

"T-t-that's great!" she replied once he picked himself up. "W-w-what did you do different this time?"

"I don't know," he shrugged. "I just tried to think about what I did before and did something else." He scratched his head. "But it's weird; it feels like I've done this for like a hundred hours. I guess I really just was hungry."

Hinata gasped, and held her fists together in front of her and furrowed her brow as she thought, thinking back to when Naruto had used his clone to put away the milk. "N-N-Naruto, that jutsu, c-c-can you remember what your clones r-remember? Did any of them try to c-climb trees?"

"Yeah? I think?" he answered. He had never tried to specifically recall a clone's memories before. "I… I remember something! One of them was feeling really bored and tried to climb a tree. And he's not the only one; a lot of them were practicing different things. One found a weird shed. And one of them tried to catch a duck! It's like I've got a hundred different memories in my head at once. It's weird, but – but I think you're right. It means I remembered what they learned!"

He reached out to grab her hands, and enthusiastically spun her around himself, almost as if they were dancing, all the while laughing. "Hinata, you're a genius, training is going to be awesome!"

Hinata couldn't think of how to reply as they spun, and settled for a giggle and a smile.


	4. Touch

**First off, sorry this chapter took longer than the others, but as you can see, it's also the longest one so far. Plus, I redid parts until I felt there were enough warm/funny bits.**

**And responding to more questions from reviews:**

**For Naruto's shadow clones, while it's certainly going to let him progress faster than normal, don't expect him to be dropping mad Rasenshurikens at the Chunin exams or anything utterly crazy like that. He's still a rookie – a rookie with a lot of promise, drive, and chakra – and unlike most other "genius" characters who seem to just be handed jutsu, he has to earn everything the hard way. The clones make the hard way slightly less hard, but it's the hard way nonetheless. Plus, I think it would be quite boring if he just shoots up to mega-bullshit levels where he takes down S-rank ninjas like nobody's business and leaves Hinata in the dust. She's a main character as much as he is, after all.**

**Regarding Kakashi: I've tried to keep him (mostly) in line with how he seems to be in the manga, at least how I read it. The differences, in my probably-flawed opinion, are just a result of other people actually interacting with him instead of ignoring him. After all, his entire spiel, and the whole reason for accepting the team in the first place, both here and in the manga, is that they are willing to throw the rules right out the window to help each other out. However, he's always struck me as reactive, rather than proactive.**

* * *

Hinata let out a sigh as she ate her ramen.

The Gentle Fist was known for many things. It was the most feared fighting style in all of Konoha, it was exclusively used by members of one of the most powerful clans, and it required the use of one of the three great dojutsu – and of those three, was the only one that wasn't extinct or endangered. But what it was not known for was stamina. True to its name, the Gentle Fist used a minimal amount of effort compared to other Taijutsu styles, which meant that the Hyuga tended to be among the most physically weak close-combat specialists in Konoha, and the ninja world in general.

Additionally, relying on only their precise chakra control to maximize the effect of their fighting style resulted in minimal chakra expenditure, and rarely did a practitioner even bother with learning advanced Ninjutsu. Few ever used their Water affinity for more than the Water Needle, or simple nature releases, once again focusing on the seemingly infinite applications of the Gentle Fist over Ninjutsu.

Advanced Genjutsu was rare as well, as up until the Uchiha massacre only a few years before, it was considered wasteful to spend time practicing techniques that were useless against members of their rival clan. The token Genjutsu required of any Jonin of Konoha tended to be the extent of a Hyuga's arsenal of illusions. By now, the habit of ignoring their Genjutsu training was already ingrained into the clan, and even the downfall of the Sharingan had done little to change that practice.

All of these factors meant that the typical Hyuga's chakra capacity was accepted as being small, and would likely stay that way for the rest of their lives. True, it would naturally expand as the clan member grew and improved, as any ninja's would, but it would never be as large as a master of Ninjutsu or a practitioner of the 'peasant' styles of Taijutsu.

Hinata learned this the hard way.

Trying to keep up with Naruto only caused her amazement of him to grow. She would tire out after a few hours of carefully practicing her Ninjutsu, and practicing them while moving drained her in no time at all. Meanwhile, the blonde shinobi could have over two dozen shadow clones wasting their chakra left and right for the entire day.

Yet each day she felt like she could do a little more. It had been two weeks since Naruto had stepped up his training with the use of shadow clones, which had made the already tiring days more intense. Thinking back, she wondered how she was able to stay on her feet for the first few days.

She held no illusions that her chakra capacity had magically increased, most likely just being a marginal gain, but she still felt much more fit than she had a month ago - less frail, less weak. She supposed this was how a civilian would feel, if they had been forced to spend a month running instead of their normal duties.

But at this moment she was afraid. Naruto's massive chakra levels made him unable to reach the same level of chakra control she had spent years mastering, and likely never would, even with the help of the shadow clones. But aside from chakra control, he was closing in on understanding the majority of the Academy Ninjutsu. After that, she felt she'd have no way to keep up. Even now she was saddened that the reason she seemed like such a genius to the knuckleheaded ninja was due to his own crippled education.

Aside from the Water Needle, the only Ninjutsu that Hinata knew, and which Naruto could not perform, was the Clone Jutsu. The Byakugan counted as well, she supposed, though she did not feel like she had earned the right to count something she was born with. Neither of those were things she could teach him, and it was highly unlikely Naruto had the same chakra nature as her; while Hinata had never mastered the Water Release, her affinity had supposedly made learning the Jutsu possible in the first place. Even if he did miraculously have a water nature, the control needed for the Water Needle was even more precise than the Clone Jutsu, and required more advanced chakra control training. It would be quite some time before he would be ready to try water walking, and Hinata blushed as she imagined herself dancing on the surface of a lake, hand-in-hand with the blonde shinobi as the sun set.

But being truthful with herself, she realized she was afraid.

They had fallen into a routine, with Naruto gradually improving as Hinata increased her stamina. She was worried about what they could practice after he had caught up to her. At this rate, she'd have nothing to impress him with after a few more weeks. Then he'd leave her behind. Her state of mind wasn't being helped by the fact that it had been weeks already, and yet all they ever did together was train; she still hadn't worked up the courage to ask him out on an actual date.

"Right Hinata?" Naruto's voiced interrupted her thoughts.

"Oh, oh, uh, yes," Hinata agreed, snapping back to the present and recalling what her teammate had asked. Ayame gave her a concerned look, which she countered with a smile, and the two women went back to listening to Naruto tell the ramen girl about what had happened on their mission today. Hinata started to finish off her bowl and nodded her head as Naruto brought up just how monstrously strong that cow had been. She still cringed when she remembered him lying in that pool of milk with the bucket on his head.

* * *

When Hinata and Naruto went to the training ground the next day, they saw Kakashi at the memorial stone once more. After the first time they had seen him there, he had developed the habit of excusing himself a few minutes after they arrived, before they had a chance to start their training in earnest. Hinata suspected that every time they showed up, they were merely reminding him of the time. Thinking about it, she realized that might explain why he was always late on the mornings they went on missions instead of training.

However, unlike the other mornings, Kakashi's mask was completely pulled down. His forehead protector still covered his eye, but the bottom half of his head was fully visible. It seemed almost unnatural for his mouth and face to be exposed. The slightest hint of a vertical scar was detectible on his left cheek, though his forehead protector hid the rest of it as it seemed to climb up towards his eye. Even with one eye covered, his dark eye and narrow jawline were rather handsome, giving him a face that, a dozen years ago, must have had the impressionable young women his age chasing after him just as wildly as they now pursued Sasuke. Perhaps even wilder. Perhaps even now. '_Maybe,'_ she thought. '_That's why he's always covering it?_'

Also strange were the two bowls. One was resting on top of the monument, untouched, and the other was in the Copy Ninja's lap. He reached into his bowl and removed a plump, juicy strawberry, and brought it to his mouth, where he gently parted his lips to let the berry reach his waiting tongue and teeth.

"Good morning," Hinata meekly stated, already cursing herself for ruining whatever moment their sensei was in the middle of. She had felt it would be rude to say nothing, but now she wished she had simply let him eat his strawberries in peace. He seemed strangely… happy.

"Yo," the Jonin replied, giving his usual greeting.

"Hey Kakashi, why's your mask off?" Naruto piped up, clearly not sharing Hinata's inhibitions.

The Jonin licked a drop of strawberry juice off of one of his fingers, and stood up, setting his bowl on the monument. "It's a special day, today. Strawberries were always her favorite. But don't worry about me and skimp out on your training." Kakashi brought both his hands up and made a scurrying, waving motion with them, implying for Hinata and Naruto to carry on with their day. Under his breath, he added "Make sure you become as strong as you can, to protect those you love, and never repeat my mistakes."

Naruto simply gave an "uhhhhh…" but Hinata grabbed his hand and pulled him away.

"Come on Naruto," she whispered. "I think he wants to be alone with the memorial."

"Right," he replied, with the two Genin going a few hundred feet away, giving the Jonin some room, as he sat back down again.

"Shadow Clone Jutsu," Naruto said as he made the ram seal, and a dozen clones formed. Wordlessly, they spread out, with some climbing trees to improve their chakra control, and others working on their E-rank Ninjutsu skills. In the past few weeks, Naruto had discovered that it was a bit silly to give his clones instructions immediately after making them. As clones, if he formulated a plan in his head just before using the jutsu, they would already be aware of their own tasks. They also seemed less likely to talk back and disobey when he focused, as well. Though, sometimes they acted a little weird after a few hours.

Kakashi seemed to take notice, as he walked over to where the original Naruto was standing with Hinata. "Naruto," the Jonin asked. "What are those shadow clones doing?"

"Training."

"I can see that," Kakashi replied, keeping his cards close to his chest. He decided to see how much the shinobi really understood about the situation, and how to contain it. The most important thing at the moment, though, was choosing his words carefully. "I suppose this must make it easier to practice new things?"

"Yeah, but they don't really help with everything," Naruto added. "I wasted a whole day making them do push-ups." He let out a sigh as he reached for his left bicep with his right hand, dreaming of the phantom muscles he could have had. "But they let me learn how to control my chakra pretty well, plus I got to practice all my jutsu with them. I only use a couple times more chakra than I need to for most jutsu, now. And I don't accidentally make too many clones anymore. Well… most of the time."

"This sounds rather taxing on your chakra," Kakashi continued to probe. "Don't you worry about overexerting yourself? You could seriously injure yourself by using that much energy all day long."

"I don't really think it's a big deal," Naruto answered truthfully. "But Hinata does, and she made me promise to limit how many clones I use and she keeps checking how much I'm using every now and then."

"I see…" Kakashi stated, scratching the back of his head, still a bit worried, but slightly relieved at the Hyuga Genin's unexpected contribution. "So what have you been doing to help Hinata's training?"

"Uh…" Naruto droned, grabbing his forehead with his thumb and index finger as if trying to pull the memories out of his head.

"Naruto, these clones seem to help you a great deal, it would be unfair to not have some of them working with Hinata. And using that much chakra could hurt you in the long run. Taijutsu would let you both practice, and cut down on your chakra usage at the same time. And I've _seen_ you fight, Naruto, your Taijutsu skills are alarmingly weak. Your stances, punches, kicks and other moves are slow and shaky, and you telegraph your moves. I'm not quite sure how you even advanced past your first year at the academy. I'd say you and…." He looked up, placing his thumb on his chin in a thinking position as he glanced around at the other shadow clones. "Seven clones should be a fair fight against her, if you don't use any Ninjutsu. Well, for sparring, at least. I'd imagine going all-out, she could take out the original no matter how many clones you threw at her. But you must not be dedicated if you haven't even tried working on your Taijutsu yet."

Naruto's jaw dropped as he looked from Kakashi to Hinata, and back. Hinata tensed herself, she hated Kakashi right now. He was overselling her and going to make Naruto hate her as well. She felt like knocking that bowl of strawberries right out of Kakashi's hands and wiping that stupid look off of his face. Of course, she would never do that. Her fear of his skills and her own bashfulness ultimately froze her in place, but even at her worst, Hinata was too kind-hearted to ever justify striking at their sensei.

Naruto quickly broke the silence. "You must have been holding back this whole time, just to help me..." He started to say, before he turned to Kakashi. "Okay, Kakashi, I'm not going to hold her back. I'll do what it takes to prove you didn't make a mistake passing me." Hinata let out a large breath she never realized she was holding in.

"Good," Kakashi replied. "Now excuse me, I have an important meeting that I just remembered."

"But what ab- DAMN IT! He did it again!" Naruto shouted as Kakashi was replaced by a pile of leaves. With a resigned sigh, Naruto yelled out at half a dozen of his clones to come over, taking a moment to explain that they were going to work on their Taijutsu today.

* * *

"Lord Hokage," Kakashi stated as he stepped through the door of the Kage's office.

"Kakashi?" the Hokage asked, looking up from his paperwork. He shifted a piece of paper to cover what he was currently working on – a small drawing that definitely had nothing to do with the budget he was supposed to be dealing with. It was a bit crude compared to what he could produce with a canvas and paintbrush while sitting on his favorite pillow, but it passed the time.

Of course, he knew Kakashi had caught him hiding his sketches, and mentally smirked. Even as skilled as the Jonin was, the old man was still able to stay one step ahead. Use a small secret as a distraction from a larger one; it was a strategy many ninja learned. Hiruzen's eyes wandered over to the sealed drawer on his desk, where the special document he had been reading was now safely stored away. Kakashi might have thought he had the greatest collection of Icha Icha books in the village, and technically, that was true. But Hiruzen was Jiraiya's sensei, having known the man for decades, and the Sannin always sent his sensei a pre-production copy, with writing all over the inside cover updating him on his pupil's activities.

Kakashi's collection of first-edition and occasionally-autographed works were certainly rare, but the Hokage's collection was one-of-a-kind. He had often toyed with the idea of revealing one book to the Jonin, and dangling it as a prize for focusing more on his assignments, but he had never done so out of fear of driving the Copy Ninja mad with jealousy and ultimately ruining his performance. '_Fitting_,' he thought, _'That the Copy Ninja's collection is but an imitation of my own.'_

"Please, I keep telling you, Hiruzen is fine. I've been doing this for over forty years, sometimes I feel as though I'll forget my own name if everyone keeps up the formalities. I thought you of all people would. But you didn't come here to hear an old man complain about his job. What is this about?

"Sorry, Sir," Kakashi let out a light chuckle, his usually irreverent attitude extended even to the Hokage, which in an inversion of the norm, made him sound more respectful than normal – or at least an outsider looking in would assume so. "It's about Naruto."

"I see, what trouble has he gotten into this time?" the Third replied, turning around to look out the window. Through it, he could clearly see that the Hokage Monument was clean and free of paint. He exhaled and turned around to face the Jonin again, picking up and lighting his pipe as he let the younger man continue.

"No trouble," Kakashi answered. "This is about his training. He's been out for the last few weeks training all day long."

"And this is a problem?"

"I'm getting to that. He's started to use shadow clones to accelerate his training. He figured it out on his own, somehow."

The Hokage took a deep breath from his pipe, and blew out a ring of smoke. He had long since developed the skill to arrange the smoke into all manner of shapes, without the use of chakra. "How many?"

"By my estimate, he uses thirteen. Fortunately his teammate, Hinata Hyuga, appears to have convinced him that using any more will tax him too much. But I don't know how long until he's advanced enough that he decides to use larger quantities."

"I see," the old man repeated his earlier statement, this time truly understanding what the Jonin meant. "And the seal?"

"It seems to be holding up; I haven't detected any abnormalities. Even using my Sharingan it appears like he has not used the Fox's chakra. I also suspect that if anything significant was leaking out, even a Genin's Byakugan would have seen it. But I can't understand the inner workings well enough to be sure of its current state."

Hiruzen let out a long sigh. "I understand. He's out right now but I'll have him take a look. I'll send someone to find you in a few hours. Also, Kakashi?"

"Yes?"

"Naruto already knows about the Nine-Tails."

Kakashi looked up at the elderly shinobi. "Come again?" he inquired.

"Mizuki told him," the old man began. "It was the night he tricked that boy into stealing the First's scroll. Iruka informed me of that he tried to convince Naruto he was a monster, but it wound up steeling his determination. He seemed to be handling the information well enough. I'll permit Iruka to reveal the events of that night to you himself, instead of making you rely on my own second-hand account."

The Third pulled out a sheet of paper, a pre-written form for declassification requests, and began to fill it out. After placing Iruka and Kakashi's names down, as well as a non-specific description of the knowledge to be shared – so as to avoid prying eyes from understanding the contents - he signed it. Folding the document, he placed a wax stamp to keep it shut. Finally, he put a small amount of his chakra into the stamp's seal, which was designed to ignite the document if flooded with chakra not belonging to the Hokage, as well as verifying the authenticity to the recipient.

"Consider this a mission," Hiruzen stated as he held out the paper, which Kakashi accepted. "Your other duties for today are cancelled on my authority."

"Understood."

Kakashi vanished, and the Hokage sighed once again. He couldn't help but smile as well.

* * *

Sasuke fell onto his hands and knees, exhausted. Working on his Kenjutsu as much as he did was extremely stamina-intensive, but he felt it was the best way to improve his body and spirit as quickly as possible.

He never would have expected to think this way, but he could not imagine a better team to have been assigned to. Naruto shared a mutual dislike with him, Hinata was the only woman his age that he knew of who wasn't swooning after him, and Kakashi was hands-off, which meant he never had to deal with any of them except for their missions, and could dedicate all his spare time to training. He only shuddered as he imagined how much time he would have had to waste fighting off Sakura or Ino if they were on his team. In fact, he had dozens of extra hours a week to work now that there was no Academy to go to.

Then he heard a knock.

Kakashi stood outside the large entry door of the Uchiha estate, cradling a cardboard box under his arm.

"Yo," the Copy Ninja greeted the Uchiha, who had finally decided to open the door.

"What do you want?" Sasuke replied. "Finally decided to show me a jutsu?" Then his voice took on a more mocking tone as he glanced at the box, "Here to give your star pupil a gift?"

"No, this is for someone else. I have some homework for you," the masked Jonin replied. He pulled out a kunai from his belt. "This will only take a minute, I have somewhere to be. Show me to your garden."

* * *

Naruto had only been home for a few minutes when he heard a knock at his door. He muted the television, and walked over to the entrance of his apartment, glancing around the kitchen to see if Hinata had forgotten anything there. She was the only person who ever came here, except the rare times the Hokage stopped by to see how he was doing – which tended to be in the morning, not evening. Even then, the old man hadn't been around since Naruto became a Genin, as they now saw each other every time Team 7 came in for their missions.

"What did you forget this time?" Naruto asked as he opened the door. To his surprise, it was not the Hyuga girl as he had been expecting, but Kakashi, who now stood outside his door. The Jonin held a large cardboard box under his left arm. "Oh, hi Kakashi."

"Yo."

"What's up? And what's with the box?"

"It's something to help with your shadow clone training."

"Oh, really!? Awesome! What is it?"

"Naruto, it's rude not to invite your guests in. Idiot."

"Yeah, yeah, fine, wha – wait, guests?" He popped his head out the door frame, and saw a man with brown hair who was about Kakashi's size in the hallway. Kakashi was a good comparison; the man also wore an outfit that was identical to the Copy Ninja's, save for the lack of red patches on the shoulders. His back was turned and he was looking at the wood grain in the walls, shaking his head. "Who is that guy?"

"This is Tenzo," Kakashi said. "He's a friend of mine, and he happens to be rather skilled in certain areas relating to you. We can talk about this more inside, away from unwanted listeners."

"Oh there's no one around here so-GYA!" Naruto started, but couldn't help but be surprised by Tenzo's strange look. His almond-shaped eyes were open impossibly wide, while an ethereal frown possessed his mouth, and his forehead protector was mounted to a happuri-style frame that ran down the sides and gave his face a rather tombstone-like look. "W-w-w-what the hell is _wrong_ with that guy, Kakashi?"

"Bad wood," Tenzo replied before the other Jonin could, and continued to shake his head as he stepped into Naruto's apartment.

Kakashi gave a cheerful shrug as he went in as well, leaving Naruto standing alone outside of his home. "You coming, Naruto?"

"I live here, of course I'm coming in!" the blonde shouted as he barged back in to his own apartment. Kakashi had set down the box on the table, while Tenzo was intensely examining the wood in the table. "Come on, come on, what's in the box?"

"Not yet," the Copy Ninja replied, lacing his voice with mild irritation at the Genin's badgering. "First we have other business to take care of. Tenzo?"

Tenzo looked up at Kakashi, and nodded. He turned to face Naruto - this time his face looked normal, much to the blonde's relief – and spoke up. "Take off your clothes."

"WHAT?" Naruto shouted, taking a step back.

"What he means, Naruto," Kakashi said with a sigh. "Is take off your jumpsuit. Tenzo is an expert when it comes to Fuinjutsu and sealing demons, and he's going to take a look at your seal - the seal which happens to be on your stomach."

Naruto relaxed a bit, but then frowned. "So you both know about it too?"

Both men nodded.

"Wait, it's on my stomach?" Naruto asked. "How do you know? I've never seen it."

"It's the best place for a seal like that," Kakashi replied. "Where else would you put it?"

"But why? What's up with it? It's been fine all these years, is something happening?" Naruto began to sound slightly worried at the implications.

"It depends," Kakashi stated grimly. "Your training with the shadow clones uses up most of your chakra. When you're constantly dipping into your chakra like that, far beyond what you could do by yourself, and operating at such a low level all day, it could cause the seal to react."

"WHAT?" Naruto shouted back.

"Calm down!" Kakashi firmly replied. "If there was anything wrong, you'd be the first to know. We're just taking precautions and checking. Okay?" Naruto nodded a response. "Tenzo?" The ANBU nodded his head in reply, and pointed at Naruto's stomach.

"Oh, right," Naruto answered, taking off the top half of his jumpsuit, and then removing his shirt.

Tenzo approached Naruto, stared at the young man's abdomen for a few moments, and then pressed his finger firmly against a point a few inches above the Genin's navel. Naruto shuddered a bit, but he was determined to see this through. "There," Tenzo said. "Focus there, try to put chakra where the nail is digging in."

Naruto focuses for a few seconds, and a small glow began to form on his stomach. Tenzo moved his finger to the side and down in a slow, circular shape. "Keep focusing where I'm pressing."

The blonde continued to focus as Tenzo traced out the entire seal, and all eight trigrams were visible, as was the spiral in the center. Tenzo pressed against the innermost curve of the spiral, and held the pressure against the point. "Here, focus here to keep the entire seal active." When Naruto did so, the ANBU took a step back, and crouched down to look at the details on the Fuinjutsu. Even Kakashi took a glance away from the orange book that had somehow gotten into his hands while Naruto and Tenzo were revealing the seal.

"Mokuton: Tailed Beast Cage Imprint Jutsu," Tenzo stated as he formed a series of seals, and pressed his chakra-imbued right palm on Naruto's navel. The chakra turned to wood over the young shinobi's skin, reaching out in each direction to form a disc-like shape. Tenzo pulled the wooden circle away, and it revealed a seemingly painted-on imprint of the Eight Trigrams Seal from Naruto's stomach. "Naruto, focus on the last point I showed you, and cease your chakra flow."

Naruto focused as asked, and the seal once again became invisible. When he looked up, Tenzo had moved the wooden disk to the table, where he was now looking down on it with his eyes focused.

"What are you-"

"Shhhh," Kakashi hushed Naruto as he flipped a page in his book, before lowering his voice. "Let him focus. He's just checking it right now, he'll explain what he found out when he finishes."

"The seal is still at full strength overall," Tenzo finally announced after he had examined the imprint for nearly twenty minutes. Naruto couldn't remember the last time he had been still like that for so long. "But the chakra pathways nearby are showing signs of expansion, heading towards the first trigram. The second shows only the slightest trace, and the others are unaffected."

"What does that mean?" Naruto asked loudly, almost shouting, but Kakashi gripped his shoulder and kept the shinobi in his seat.

"The seal is designed to gradually wear down over time, to allow you to absorb the Kyubi's chakra," Tenzo started to explain. "At first just a fraction of a fraction, but as you become stronger, many years from now, you will eventually be able to completely absorb its chakra. That's the reason for sealing it in a child instead of an adult in the first place. But repeated near-exhaustion of your chakra, and operating at such low levels for extended periods of time, is artificially progressing your absorption. You could make contact in as little as two months."

"WHAT?" Naruto yelled, suddenly fighting tears. "You mean it's going to break free? Do I have to stop training? Do I have to stop being a ninja? Do… do I have to leave Konoha?"

"No, no, nothing like that," Kakashi replied. "You're still a green Genin, barely five weeks out of the academy, and it's a miracle that you even managed to pass knowing as little as you did. Maybe you're strong enough to handle a bit of the fox's chakra, but if you keep this up, you'll most likely be overwhelmed. If the fox tried to break free at this point, you'd both just die before it could even get a claw out."

Naruto frowned at Kakashi's rather morbid sense of humor, but also seemed a bit relieved.

"If you stopped making clones designed to burn through your chakra, you'll have plenty of time to get stronger and prepare yourself for resisting the fox."

"But…" Naruto started to say, trying to figure things out. "I have to use the shadow clones to get stronger to stop the fox from getting out, but I can't use the shadow clones without letting the fox out. I'm screwed."

"No Naruto, you just can't continue blowing away all your chakra like you've been doing," Kakashi replied. "Having some of your clones train with Taijutsu like you started doing today is already going to help you out by not using as much chakra. But that strengthens your reactions more than anything else, and you need more command over your chakra to be able to keep the fox in check. That's where this comes in." Kakashi opened the box, reached inside of it, and pulled out a book.

"What's that?" Naruto asked.

"This," the Copy Ninja stated ominously. "Is a book. It has writing inside of it, which you can then read. It requires a source of light, though, and burns if you hold it too close to a flame. I've heard from the Academy instructors that you have an allergy to them."

"HEY!" Naruto shouted. "I thought you were here to help, not just be an asshole!"

Kakashi tsked, but couldn't help but grin under his mask that the Genin's irritation with him was already brightening his mood, and continued. "This book has a few dozen basic Fuinjutsu seals. If you want to practice your chakra control with your shadow clones, you can use this instead." Kakashi poured out the rest of the box to reveal several dozen reams of paper, some writing utensils, and a few containers of ink. "Basic seals require a degree of precision like climbing a tree, but you only need to use a fraction of the chakra. This way, you can make shadow clones with less chakra who still help you with your training, and you keep more chakra yourself to avoid damaging the seal."

"What can you do with seals?" Naruto asked, looking at the items now on his table.

"They can do plenty of things. They can store weapons so you can carry much more than you otherwise could, they can be placed on objects to reinforce them, and advanced seals can even add effects to things. But… we came prepared. Tenzo, show him the technique."

Tenzo nodded, and pulled out a small piece of paper with a seal on it, placing it on the table. He shot chakra through his finger, pressed it against the seal, and a puff of smoke appeared. The cloud dissipated rapidly, leaving in its place a bowl; a bowl of ramen. Naruto could already smell the broth – the ramen was still hot!

"Damn it Kakashi, why were you keeping this sealing stuff secret?" Naruto shouted, reaching for the bowl, only to have Tenzo pull it away, keeping it out of reach, and dodging all of Naruto's attempts to capture it.

"Sealing away food and organic matter like that is much more difficult than storing weapons and other things, and requires years of practice. Even I can't do it. And it requires quite a bit of chakra, so you have to get the basics down first, or else it's the same problem as with tree climbing and Ninjutsu. But with your shadow clones helping out, you might be able to do it within a few years."

"Come on! Just show me what I have to do to make the ramen scroll!" Naruto replied.

"No, Naruto, you aren't skilled enough," Kakashi said with a grimace as Tenzo pulled out a pair of chopsticks and ate from the bowl, while still expertly dodging the exasperated Genin.

Kakashi sighed. He hated himself for having to resort to his next line, but it was for the blonde's own good. "Besides, it's still too dangerous. Even if the fox kills you instead of breaking out, there would still be a bit of time where it had control before burning your body up. You wouldn't want to hurt Hinata by letting it out when you train, would you?"

The orange-clad shinobi stopped chasing after the bowl of ramen, and turned to face Kakashi. "It… it could really do something like that?"

"It might, but it won't happen if you're careful and take precautions. Now promise me you'll stop using the clones like you've been doing. One or two using Ninjutsu and consuming all their chakra should be fine, but use the rest for less intensive training. At least for now. We'll see if anything changes in the future."

"Okay," Naruto said after a few seconds of consideration. "I promise."

"Good," Kakashi said with a grin. "Use the other scroll." The last sentence was targeted at Tenzo, who pulled out another scroll, and quickly made another bowl of ramen appear, which Naruto darted for. "I'll bring Tenzo by every now and then, to check up on how you're doing."

With that, the two older shinobi headed out the door, leaving Naruto alone with his ramen, and his thoughts. After nearly inhaling the bowl, the Genin walked around the table to open up the book and flip through the pages. It was thick, detailed, and he vaguely remembered some of the basic things like this being covered in the Academy –in a class he had skipped. He gulped when he saw the more advanced pages.

Yet despite the challenge, he looked determined. Balling his hands up into fists, he lightly punched his stomach and made the seal appear again. "I won't let you hurt her," he growled down at it.

* * *

"W-why?" Hinata asked, nearly choking on her breakfast.

"Oh it's because… uh," Naruto realized he hadn't thought of how to explain things to Hinata without also mentioning the fox, but after a moment he had it. "Because Kakashi said it might hurt me to use up all that chakra all the time. So I'll leave some clones here to work on this sealing stuff, and then we can go train."

"Oh…" the Hyuga kunoichi let out a sigh of relief. "Okay."

* * *

"Hey Hinata, can you train by yourself today?" Naruto asked out of the blue a few weeks later as they left the Academy, paychecks in hand from their latest mission.

"W-w-why?" Hinata replied, slightly frightened. She was already cursing her stuttering for returning. She had been doing so well with it for the past few weeks.

"Well I have to go shopping for some new weapons and Fuinjutsu stuff today, and I don't want to make you stop training."

"I… I could… well we…"

"Oh look, it's Sakura!" Naruto said, smiling, pointing a ways down the street where the pink-haired kunoichi was walking, yelling something at Kiba who walked alongside her and yelling back, while a silent Shino shook his head behind them. "HEY SAK-"

"Oops!" Hinata said, throwing herself to the ground.

"What, huh?" Naruto asked, turning around. "Hinata, are you okay?" He bent over and held out a hand to help her up.

"Y-yes, sorry," the Hyuga replied as she pulled on Naruto's extended hand in order to pick herself up. The blonde looked back, but Team 8 was gone. "Um…" she breathed out, trying to find the words. "We could go shopping together. I think I'll use today's money to buy a new shuriken set."

"What, how can you afford a new set with today's pay?"

"Naruto?" Hinata asked, confused. "A shuriken only costs 50 ryo. Today's pay is more than enough for a new set."

"What? Really? What store do you go to?" Naruto asked. "The cheapest I can find are 200 ryo for used ones, so I thought this was only enough for me to buy two."

"They're 50 ryo everywhere, where are you shop – hold on, our checks are 1250 ryo. That would still be enough for six at that price."

"Yeah, but that's the value of the check. I go to a loanshark down the street who cashes the monthly support checks I get from the old man, plus my pay now that I do missions. He's an okay guy, he gives me a pretty good rate so I get to at least keep half of my check."

"Half?"

"Well, no, it's more like a third I guess, since I also have to pay income tax."

"Income tax?"

"We're tax-paying citizens of Konoha, Hinata," Naruto said, almost as if reciting something he had heard. "It's part of the will of fire that we support our village."

Hinata blinked, wondering what he was babbling about. "Why are you even going to a loanshark? Don't you have a bank account?"

"No, I don't have enough money to meet the minimum deposit at any of the places in town."

"Minimum deposit?" Hinata asked, though she could guess what the response would be by this point.

"Yeah, how much you need to have before you're allowed to have an account. But it's a lot; I'm not anywhere close to the 100,000 ryo."

Hinata gave a sad frown; nothing Naruto was saying made sense. None of the banks in Konoha required minimum deposits unless you weren't a citizen, ninjas didn't pay income tax on mission pay, and that loanshark sounded like he was downright screwing him and passing himself off as a hero. And no one in town had that high of markup for weapons, it was a competitive market and they would go out of business. She felt like crying when she remembered how he mentioned that everyone hated him, all those weeks. She thought he was just exaggerating about some people being annoyed by him, back in that first day at his apartment, but this… this was downright cruel.

"U-u-um, Naruto," she stammered out, holding back her tears to avoid having to explain what she realized. "I can cash your checks for you at my bank from now on, and I take you to the stores I go to."

"Really? You can do that?" Naruto replied. Hinata only nodded back. "Great! Let me pay for ramen tonight then!"

The kunoichi nodded as she walked towards her bank.

* * *

For the first time in her life, Hinata was glad to be a Hyuga. It was certainly difficult growing up in the clan, especially as the heiress. She could still recall the nigh-daily comments about how advanced the young members of other clans were, the implication that she had failed always lingering in the air.

_"The Uchiha boy is already an ANBU."_

_"I saw the Inuzuka girl's ninken today. Three!"_

_"I hear the Hokage's daughter used three nature transform at the exam."_

_"The Senju's already a Jonin."_

At least when the Uchiha heir slaughtered all but one member of his family, there was one less clan to compare her to.

In actuality, she was no longer the heiress, and everyone in the clan knew it, but no one else was permitted to reveal that particular detail to outsiders. After all, it would be political suicide to declare that their heiress was a pathetic weakling, and Hiashi couldn't have that. Instead, if everyone played their parts correctly, Hanabi's apparently unparalleled potential could be used as an excuse to declare her as the new heiress when the time was right.

But for now, even being able to pretend was helpful.

Their first stop for the day, the bank, had been simple enough. The guard at the door had glared at Naruto, but didn't stop him from entering. Inside, another guard continued to glance at the Genin, but it seemed as though that was the extent of what they would do to him. The teller was another story, as she at first refused to cash Naruto's check, but relented when the kunoichi carefully asked if the bank had decided to refuse service to the Hyuga. She made sure to look her in the eyes with her Byakugan the whole time.

At the scroll shop, she made the mistake of letting Naruto purchase his own items, but had caught it in time. She could hear the vendor giving the blonde outlandish quotes on supplies, and rushed herself over to the counter. This situation was easier to resolve the bank had been, and simply asking if the prices had gone up resulted in the man "realizing" he had used the wrong values.

At the weapons store, she made sure to be right next to him, and everything seemed to be going smoothly when the woman behind the counter gave them normal prices on the first try. But her eyes allowed her to catch that the shuriken he was buying were scratched and scuffed. Claiming that she'd have to inform the clan that her weapons weren't up to standards eventually fixed that issue right up.

Hinata would have continued to recall the strange events of the day, but Naruto interrupted her thoughts. "What do you mean you've never seen one before?" she questioned him, stopping in her tracks.

"Well, I've seen them on TV, but never in person like this," Naruto replied, looking at poster on the wall.

"Okay," the kunoichi said quietly to herself, focusing. "W-w-w-would you like to watch a movie with me?" she asked.

* * *

As the credits began to roll, Hinata could not recall a single detail of the film, and even the name of the movie seemed to be escaping her. All she could remember was Naruto's hand gripping hers tightly when the last action scene started.

She had lightly shrieked when Mao ordered the chakra golem to attack Princess Gale, and had rammed her hand into the armrest, only to feel his hand already there, subconsciously grabbing hers. She couldn't resist squeezing back, and he had gotten so caught up watching the silver screen that he never seemed to realize it. After all, simply touching was nothing really new, as it had happened thousands of times during their training, and Naruto's habit of pulling her along everywhere made physical contact outside of training rather common as well. She almost stopped breathing as she realized just how often she and Naruto were in close physical proximity.

But tonight… tonight was the first time things were different.

When he leaned back at the film's conclusion, he declared "That was awesome!" and brought his right hand - which had been punching at the air just a moment ago - down. As he did so, his head lowered to see his left hand intertwined with Hinata's right. Tracing the arm down, he realized his elbow was pressing into her side.

"Sorry!" Hinata said as she met his gaze. She immediately blushed, releasing the grip and standing up as she did so.

"It's okay," Naruto replied, Hinata's mind racing to figure out just what in the hell he meant by that. She absentmindedly nodded, bobbing her head up and down as she raced to the exit, Naruto following quickly behind.

"B-bye, see you tomorrow!" Hinata stammered out as she raced away.

* * *

Iruka had just finished putting away his dishes – or rather, his dish, being a bachelor certainly made cleaning up after dinner simple - when he heard a knock on his door.

"Naruto," he happily greeted the Genin. It had been a while since he had last seen the other shinobi; as troublesome as Naruto's pranks had been during the Academy, he still missed the kid. However, he noticed that in place of the blonde's usual ear-to-ear grin was a rather thoughtful-looking face. "Something on your mind?"

Naruto nodded. "Iruka, can I ask you something?"

"Any time, Naruto," the Chunin responded, waving the blonde in.

* * *

"Welcome home, Hinata."

The Hyuga Genin froze as she stepped through the door. She hadn't been expecting this. Why now? Why today of all days? Things had been perfect until now. Maybe that was the reason. Maybe the Heavens wouldn't allow a day to go her way.

"G-good evening, Father."


	5. Love

A ray of sunlight made its way through the window, and comfortably pressed against Naruto's sleeping face. The warmth brought the ninja to his senses, as he slowly opened his eyes. Thoughts of last night had been flooding through his head and kept him tossing and turning until he was too exhausted to think, and he had been expecting to be dead tired when he woke up. Yet he was oddly relaxed and refreshed.

Turning over to look at the clock solved the mystery of his restful awakening; it was nearly 11AM.

Jolting out of bed, Naruto swore as he started to hurriedly dress himself, realizing he was hours late for training. As he slid on his forehead protector and rolled into the bathroom to brush his teeth, he couldn't shake a strange feeling. By the time he finished washing his face, ran past his table, and began to open his front door, he stopped as the thought in the back of his mind came bubbling up.

Hinata hadn't come by yet.

Thinking about it, he had no idea where she lived. They had been training together for weeks, nearly two months, and she was always the one meeting him here, not the other way around. He felt a bit saddened by that fact. He didn't know where many people lived, but he should have tried to find out. He hated Sasuke, yet he still knew where the shinobi lived – though Sasuke had never been able to prove he was the one who egged the Uchiha estate. He also knew where Kakashi lived, but Naruto was still a bit upset about the 'Ultra Secret Off-The-Books S-Rank Mission' where they had spent the day washing the Jonin's windows, vacuuming his place, and repairing his outdated plumbing system. It had at least taught him to not try and ask for a 'cool' mission again. But Hinata, for all that had happened since they graduated, he had never tried to find out more about her.

"Damn it, moron," he muttered, kicking his foot lightly against the wall. He started heading towards their usual training spot to see if she was there - and a few seconds later, he came running right back, stepped through the door, and brought his hands up into the ram seal.

"Shadow Clone Jutsu," he stated as a group of eight shadow clones appeared. Four went to the table to do their usual Fuinjutsu practice, while the other four remained standing. "You already know the plan, just figure out how you do it," the original added as he darted back out.

The Naruto copies shrugged, and after a few moments of glancing around, they began to move. One of the clones went towards the window, another started to climb up to the roof, the third went out into the hallway and sat down near the stairway, and the last followed the original Naruto, but stopped on the front stoop of the building. Even though they had no way to know it, all four shadow clones let out a bored sigh at the same time as they began to keep a lookout.

Having now assured himself he wouldn't miss Hinata if she went to his apartment only a minute after he left, he ran towards the Third Training Ground. When he arrived, the blonde shinobi saw no trace of the Hyuga Genin.

"Hey Kakashi," Naruto said, approaching his sensei who was apparently lost in thought, looking at the memorial. "What are you doing here so late?"

"Late?" Kakashi asked, pulling out a small clock to look at the time. He stared at it for a moment.

"Damn it!" Naruto shouted as Kakashi suddenly Body Flickered away, kicking the dirt as hard as he could in anger. "That's getting old, Kakashi!" He shouted a few more choice words into the air, at no one in particular, before leaving the training ground. He made a dozen clones before he left, and they positioned themselves at key vantage points as the real Naruto ran off towards central Konoha. He might not know where Hinata lived or where she was, but the knuckleheaded ninja knew a man who could find anyone in the city.

* * *

Genma sat behind a desk just outside the Hokage's office. Being one of the personal guards to both the Third and Fourth Hokage for nearly two decades was certainly his mother's favorite subject to bring up when talking with the other older women of the village. Of course, the other reason she discussed it was due to him still being single in his early thirties, so she couldn't discuss grandchildren yet. It wasn't his fault though, he couldn't easily meet that many women being cooped up at the Academy or the Hokage's residence all of the time.

But the job was also boring. There was only one thing that really spiced up the routine, and even that had become less common than before. Until the shinobi he was thinking of walked through the door.

"Hello, Naruto," Genma greeted the blonde Genin as he walked out of the stairs and towards his desk.

"Hi, Genma," Naruto quickly muttered as he continued to walk towards the Hokage's office.

"Just barging in again?" he asked, his mouth forming the slightest of grins.

"Yup," the blonde replied, passing the desk and approaching the door.

"Alright," the Tokujo replied, not bothering to get up as he fiddled with a senbon that was in his mouth. He was a ninja, how had he gotten so complacent, that this would be the most interesting thing to happen all week at work?

Naruto suddenly froze as if he were remembering something, and then promptly turned around and began to run out. "Bye, Genma," he called out as he walked away.

"See ya, Naruto." With a sigh, Genma went back to reading a book.

* * *

Naruto got back to his apartment in a few minutes, where Hinata was sitting at the table, frowning as she watched his clones trying to seal a kunai into a sheet of paper.

"Hinata, where were you?" he asked as he opened the door.

"I… I was at home. I had to do some training."

"Training?"

Hinata nodded slowly. "My father wanted me to improve, so now I have to spar with Neji every now and then."

"Oh…" he replied. "I thought you might have been sick or something. And then I realized I didn't know where you live and I couldn't think of where else you'd be. Hey…" he paused for a moment, looking at her. "What happened to your goggles?"

"Um," Hinata paused, feeling her forehead. "I dropped them, but I'm going to take them to a lensmaker to fix them."

"Alright," Naruto replied. Before he could continue, Hinata resumed talking.

"We should go train now," she stated, trying to stay away from the previous subject. "We still have most of the day left."

* * *

Naruto was impressed with how well he was progressing. Today, he was able to dodge most of Hinata's attacks, and there were three of his shadow clones still left standing as he landed a punch on her arm.

At which point, Hinata shrieked in pain and fell down, clutching her forearm.

"Hinata?" the Narutos asked in concern, and the clones stopped talking to allow the original to take priority in the conversation. "Are you okay? I thought I pulled that punch back."

"Y-you did," the Hyuga replied. "I was just a little sore. Sorry." As she spoke, she sat up; slowly. She turned her head away from Naruto, not looking him in the eye.

Naruto thought for a moment. Either he was a lot stronger than yesterday, which he had been hoping was a sign of his training, or Hinata…. He grabbed Hinata's hand, and pulled the sleeve up, revealing a bruise.

Hinata gulped as Naruto acted, and looked away from him.

"Who did this to you?" he asked her, letting go.

"I told you, I just did some sparring practice at home with Neji, it's fine."

"We don't get that bruised when we train. There's no way that's just from sparring."

"Naruto, please, I'm okay, really."

"That's bullshit!" the shinobi replied. "That looks like he seriously tried to hurt you, not just spar."

"He just gets a bit intense when we train, but that's how we always are."

"Where is he? Where's he at right now?"

"W-why?"

"I want to talk to him."

"No, you don't have to, it was my own fault for not knowing how to def-"

"I don't believe that!" Naruto shouted. "Not for one minute. Anyone who'd do this to you is an animal, you can't blame yourself for it. Tell me where he is. If not, I'll have to make enough clones to scout out the city until I find him, but it'd be a lot faster if you told me. Especially cause I've never seen him before, so I'd have to check everyone's eyes to figure out who he is."

Hinata couldn't bring herself to say anything for a few moments. She felt warm at the idea of Naruto standing up for her, but she didn't want him to get hurt either. As he brought his hands up in a ram seal, she realized he was dead serious. "Wait!" the kunoichi screeched. "He and Team Gai are at Training Ground 73, but please promise not to try and fight him."

"I can't promise that," Naruto replied. "I already promised Kakashi I'd protect my team, that I won't just be a punk."

"Please, I'm fine, really, let's keep sparring," Hinata burst out, but Naruto seemed like he had already made up his mind. "We can keep going."

"No, just wait here, I'll be back in a minute. I'll leave these guys with you," he said, gesturing at the shadow clones before racing off.

"Stop!" Hinata called out, shakily standing up. It was too late, though, as Naruto had already run off. She let out a sigh of defeat, and turned to face one of the clones. There was only one thing she could do now. "Tell him I'll go with him…."

* * *

"Please Naruto, you shouldn't do this," Hinata repeated again, still trying to change the blonde's decision as he approached Team Gai's training spot. Just like the entire walk over, he refused to change his mind.

When they got there, they saw that a Hyuga with long black hair was sparring with a kunoichi with twin buns that made her look like a panda. Nearby, a shinobi with black hair in a bowl cut was wearing green spandex, and doing one-handed pushups. All three looked to be about their age, though they had signs of being a year older.

"Yosh! Hinata, who is your friend?" the green-clad Genin called out towards Hinata with a wave, using his free hand. "I like his clothes, orange burns with the flames of youth almost as much as green does!"

"Who are these guys?" Naruto asked Hinata. "Which one is he?"

"That's Rock Lee. Tenten and Neji are the ones sparring," she replied. "Lee, this is Naruto, he's my teammate, and he wa-"

"Hey asshole!" Naruto shouted at Neji. Team Gai stopped what they were doing, turning their heads to look at the orange-wearing blonde. "Why are you beating on Hinata!?"

Lee and Tenten both looked over at Neji. Lee's face seemed to show genuine confusion, while Tenten wore a smug grin as if she already knew what to expect.

Neji gave a dismissive look, before he sternly replied. "It was simply sparring practice. If a weakling like her cannot handle practicing her techniques, then she has no right being a ninja. It would save me the time I waste practicing with her."

"Take that back!" Naruto shouted. "Hinata and I train hard every day. We're ninja just like you are."

"Like me?" the older Hyuga replied with a grin, letting out a light laugh at the implication. "I am nothing like you. I am the greatest Genin in all of Konoha. And you, anyone who paid attention at the academy should know who _you_ are. Naruto Uzumaki - always breaking the law and being chased by the ANBU, skipping class and being chased by the instructors, and otherwise causing trouble and pulling pranks. You even started early and entered a year ahead of us - until you failed your graduation exam. Then you failed a second time and got held back again. I'm surprised you managed to pass the third time. But it appears the Hokage must have some pity for you, forming a team where he can put the losers."

"GOD DAMN IT!" Naruto charged at Neji, throwing a haymaker at the Hyuga's face, which the older boy easily dodged by shifting his posture. In addition to dodging the strike, Neji propped up his foot, causing Naruto to trip and roll over into the grass.

"You think you can fight me? You, who constantly failed, pose a challenge for the top student at the academy?"

"Never!" Naruto shouted, more agitated than before, but keeping his voice somewhat level. "Take back what you said."

"I cannot take back that which is but a fact."

Naruto threw himself at Neji again, this time bringing his knee up as he swung, trying to use his punch as a distraction. But the Hyuga avoided both attacks quickly, and Naruto's own momentum caused him to tumble over again.

"You have no business getting involved in clan matters, it has nothing to do with you. The only option for you is to quit while you can still draw breath."

"It has everything to do with me," Naruto stated, standing back up. "She's my teammate, and I can't let anyone get away with hurting my friends."

"It's hopeless, just give up now," Neji droned out, his voice betraying no real emotion. "Only a fool would continue when it's clear you will never defeat me."

"Alright, now I'm really pissed. I'm going to kick your ass!" Naruto shouted, putting himself into a ninjutsu stance. He brought up his hands and formed the ram seal, preparing his favorite Jutsu. "Shadow Clo-OOPH!"

Before he could finish his jutsu, Neji closed the distance between them, and landed a pair of strikes on Naruto's arms, his hands freezing in place. The blonde couldn't feel the chakra in his hands anymore, but before he could think about that further, he felt stronger blows connecting with his legs. In a matter of seconds, he fell onto his knees as the energy in them vanished, while Neji continued to precisely strike at him – the Hyuga's palms flew all around him in a barely-perceptible flurry of strikes. A few seconds later, with all the chakra and stamina in his body gone, his torso fell forwards, sending the Gening toppling into the grass.

"Naruto!" Hinata cried out, running over to the disabled Genin.

"Pathetic. It appears that you are indeed a fool. You cannot fight against your fate," Neji stated, monotone as ever, looking down at his cousin and her teammate. He turned to Tenten and Lee, and walked towards them. "Let's go, I believe it's time for lunch, and then our mission." Without waiting for a response, he continued to walk past them, back towards town.

"Yosh! Naruto, your fires of youth burn strong! I hope we meet soon!" Lee called out with a grin as Tenten dragged him along. "SorrybutImustgo!" he threw out a few last words as the kunoichi scowled at the green-clad Genin. She followed after Neji, growling something incomprehensible at Lee.

"Naruto, why'd you fight him?" Hinata asked, rolling the shinobi over.

"Because I had to," he spurted out, his lips moving slow. The feeling was coming back to them, so he was able to talk well enough.

"But you didn't. And you didn't have to keep going at it after the first time he told you to stop."

"You know me," Naruto smiled at her weakly, taking in a breath. "I don't learn my lessons fast enough. I still don't think I have, so I'll try again sometime. I can't stop until I've made him eat his words"

"Please, Naruto, no, he's not a bad person-"

"How could he not be a bad person?" Naruto cut her off. "He's an asshole, plain and simple. I think I hate him as much as Sasuke. Probably more, since at least I can get along with him on our missions."

"N-no, but you don't understand, he's-" Hinata tried to think of a way to phrase it. "He's a little rough when we practice, but that's just it. Life hasn't been very fair to him, and he's angry."

"Not fair?"

Hinata nodded.

"What do you mean?"

"He's in the branch family," Hinata said.

"What does that mean?"

"Oh, he… there's two houses of the Hyuga clan," Hinata started explaining, realizing Naruto probably hadn't attended in any of the classes where they discussed the many clans of Konoha. "I'm in the Main Family, and Neji's in the Branch Family. People in the Branch Family have a seal put on their heads when they're a kid."

"Why? Who would put a seal on a kid?" Naruto asked, his eyes suddenly darting up to look her right in the eyes.

Hinata swallowed hard, trying to maintain focus with Naruto looking at her like that. "It makes sure that if they die, their Byakugan is dissolved, so no one can steal it. And… and it also lets the clan leaders stop them from rebelling, because they can make the seal hurt them if they disobey."

Naruto exhaled. "Okay, fine, so his life isn't the best. Do you think that makes it okay? Someone put a seal on him as a kid and that lets him treat you like trash?"

"N-no, but he, I mean he's… well he already suffers enough, I don't want to-"

Naruto pulled down the zipper on his jacket, causing each half to fall to the side, and he tugged at the shirt below. The cloth was pulled out from his pants, where it had been tucked before, and dragged up to his chest, exposing most of his upper body between the belt and chest. She couldn't help but glance at his abdominal muscles for a few moments before blinking.

"N-N-Naruto?" Hinata stuttered, not quite sure if this was real life anymore, or if she had taken such a hard blow to the head that she was now in a vegetative state, living out the rest of her days in an elaborate fantasy world. Still pondering that, she noticed something appearing on the shinobi's stomach – a spiral-looking tattoo of some sort. Within a few moments, it was surrounded by a concentric circle consisting of eight trigrams. The entire arrangement was large, larger than any seal she had ever seen on a person – she could put both of her hands on his stomach and barely cover half of it.

"Naruto?" Hinata asked again. "What… how… why… why do you have a seal?"

"Because I'm like Neji," Naruto said. "I had this thing placed on me when I was a kid. On the day I was born, too. So I've been living with it even longer than he's had his."

"Why would anyone…?"

"Because I was nearby, I guess, I don't know," he replied. "But you know what this thing's for? It's a lot worse than that stupid seal that burns up your eyes. And I don't use it as an excuse to act like him."

"What? What is it?" Hinata asked, suddenly terrified. The Caged Bird Seal was a horrible seal in her opinion, one that effectively enslaved its bearers to the Main Family, and it was only a fraction of the size of the one on Naruto. Whatever _that_ seal did, it was something serious.

"This," Naruto said flatly. "Is the seal where the Nine-Tailed Fox is locked up. When the Kyubi attacked the village, they sealed it right here," he patted his stomach, "and called it a day. Everyone in the village who was old enough to remember knows about it, and they all hate me for it. They think I'm a monster. So are you still going to tell me I don't understand Neji?"

"N-N-Naruto, I'm sorry," Hinata started to cry, pressing her fingers together in front of her mouth, almost as if to hide her face. She scooted herself a few feet away from him. "I didn't know."

Naruto frowned as the kunoichi cried, heart breaking as he saw her face twisting. "I… I guess I'll ask Kakashi to put me on a different team if it scares you that much. I didn't think that you would be-"

"NO!" Hinata shouted. Not realizing what her body was doing, she threw herself at the shinobi, embracing him with a tight hug. "I'm not scared. That's not it at all. I'm sorry that I never knew how much you were hurting. You're still the same Naruto you were yesterday; I don't care what some ink on your body says. You're the same Naruto who's my only friend. You're the same Naruto who never gives up. You're the same Naruto who refused to quit and became a ninja. You're the same Naruto that wants to be the Hokage and protect the village, even after how everyone's treated you your whole life. You're the same Naruto that I… that I fell in love with. I'm sorry, Naruto, I fell in love with you, I can't help it. I know how you feel about Sakura, but it happened."

She mentally kicked herself for bringing up the pink-haired kunoichi, but to her surprise, her training partner didn't push away. His arms closed around her back, returning her embrace, and buried his eyes in her neck.

She lost track of time, saying nothing as she was too nervous to talk. Too comfortable with their current position and too scared the moment would end and she'd be back in her bed, just waking up. But after several long seconds, she felt his head move, and he pulled himself far enough away to say something.

"It's fine, I… I think I do too."

Hinata gasped. "You, you mean…? What? Think?"

"I've never really had anyone love me before," Naruto said, and Hinata stopped her stream of half-questions. "I had plenty of crushes at the academy, but none of them felt like how I feel with you. I care about you. I like being with you. I like spending time with you, and it feels lonely when you're not there. I like how even now that I told you about the seal, all it did was make you cry for me and tell me you love me instead of running away. And when I thought about Neji hurting you, I got so angry I couldn't breathe or think straight. You're the only person in the world who makes me feel like that, so… so if that's not love, I don't really know what else it could be." He took a deep lungful of air in, having said what he did in a single breath.

She gasped, and for the first time in weeks, felt a familiar rush of blood to her head.

* * *

Hinata purred gently as she woke up, remaining in a state of half-sleep as she pressed her face against something warm. Blinking a few times, she realized it was someone's face. Naruto's face. In an instant, she jerked her head back to give her some space, as she remembered exactly where she was. From the position of the sun, it had to have been a few hours since the fight.

Looking back down, she could see Naruto was gently resting there in front of her, eyes closed, and not awake like she had thought. She wanted to stay like that forever, but her movements seemed to have roused him, and he opened his eyes.

"Sorry, I thought I was over my fainting spells," she apologized as he woke.

"It's okay," he replied. "I liked being able to sleep with you."

Hinata blushed at his poor choice of words, but resumed gazing at the clouds. "I did too," she finally told him – albeit quietly.

"Plus I still can't move my goddamn legs."

Sitting bolt upright, Hinata looked at Naruto for a second. She had completely forgotten about the fight because of more pressing matters, and chose to activate her Byakugan to get a better look. Inspecting his body revealed that his tenketsu were a complete mess, and she wondered how he was even able to move. The upper body and arms had been hit the lightest, and the strong flow of his chakra had opened up the blockages since the fight. But his legs had taken a brutal thrashing, and the chakra points were still shut. He probably could have recovered long ago if he had focused on forcing his chakra through, instead of sleeping, but she decided not to bring up that particular detail.

"I can fix it," she said, nodding as she sent chakra into her hands. Throwing a series of light jabs at his major chakra blocks, the tenketsu opened up and the energy flowed into the minor points, flooding his body with his regular chakra level.

"What did you do?" Naruto asked, sitting up.

"He blocked your chakra points, so I unblocked them."

"He blocked my chakra… points?" he replied, not quite sure of how that worked.

"It's part of the Gentle Fist. It blocks your opponent's chakra from flowing, taking them out faster and gentler than trying to knock them down with your fists. But if you know the technique, you can also use it to undo the damage."

"You mean you can do that sort of thing too?"

Hinata nodded.

"How come you never did it when we train?"

"Um…" Hinata replied, gulping. "I… I was afraid of hurting you."

"I understand," Naruto replied after a few heartbeats. Taking advantage of Hinata's close proximity as they sat together, he wrapped his arms around her again, and placed his chin on her shoulder. "But don't worry about me getting hurt, though. I need to get stronger to protect you, and if you accidentally hurt me, I won't mind."

"I.. . I can't," Hinata replied, eyes watering again as she gripped him tightly. "Would you be able to hit me with all of your might?"

"Of course not," Naruto replied, shocked. "I couldn't imagine hurting… oh… I guess I was being stupid again, wasn't I?"

"No Naruto, you're never stupid," Hinata answered quickly, patting his back. "You're brave and you're willing to help me whatever it costs you, that's not stupid at all. There's no one in the world who care about me that much. But I don't want to hurt you."

"Well, we can talk about training some other time," Naruto conceded. "Probably do something with shadow clones; I don't get hurt if they do."

"Okay."

"Okay. So we can do that tomorrow after our mission."

"Naruto?" Hinata asked.

"Yeah?"

"Could we stay like this for a while?"

"Okay."

"Okay."

* * *

"Hi Naruto, Hinata," Ayame greeted the ninja as they entered Ichiraku. "You're here early, did you –" She cut herself off as she noticed the way the two were acting. How they seemed to be holding each other differently from normal. She smiled like only someone trying to stay up-to-date on the latest gossip would, before quickly pressing her palms against her cheeks. "Byaaaa!" she squeeled out. "Oh my God … are you two? Are you? You are! Oh, I knew it, you have it all over your faces."

"Wuh, wuh, what?" Hinata asked, her cheeks blushing a deep red. "We just, we um…." As she nervously brought her hands up to her face, accidentally brushing them against her hair, Hinata felt a leaf fall out of place. In horror, she noticed that her hair looked like she had been rolling around in the grass, and Naruto's own hair still had a few blades of grass in it. The woman behind the counter noticed her deepening blush as well, then the leaf, and then how she kept looking from herself to Naruto and back.

"NARUTO!" Ayame shouted. "What did you do? Hinata's a _nice_ girl!"

"Calm down!" Naruto said, startled, and jumped back.

"W-w-w-we, we didn't do, we didn't do _that_," Hinata stammered out at Ayame, almost whispering the last word as she tried to defuse the situation. "We uh… we just looked at the clouds and talked."

"Oh," Ayame responsed, calming down. "But wait, then what's the deal? Are you two dating now or what?"

"Ummm… I guess," Naruto replied, as Hinata seemed to be frozen.

Ayame giggled, looking at the Hyuga kunoichi. "Alright, sorry Hinata, I guess that's enough questions for now – but don't think you're off the hook just yet."

Hinata nodded thankfully, glad to change the subject as she ordered her usual. She focused on her meal until they were nearly done, and discussing what to do for their training.

"Except it's going to be hard to train if you're going to be busy every morning," Naruto told Hinata as he finished his ramen.

Hinata frowned. "Yeah."

"Wait," Naruto said. "I think I know who can help."

* * *

Kakashi looked up from his orange book. Taking a few steps forward, he opened his door. "Naruto? Hinata?" he asked.

* * *

Gai was expertly guiding a blade, as he carefully shaped a new pair of nunchuks from a block wood. "A scratch!" he suddenly shouted at the objects in his hands, breaking his focus. "I am sorry, block! Tomorrow I will run 100 laps around Konoha for my failure!"

Just as he got up to put away his failure and fetch another fresh block of wood, someone knocked on his door.

"Kakashi!" Gai enthusiastically stated, as he greeted his rival.

* * *

Hiashi sighed as the Branch Family member alerted him to a visitor at the Hyuga estate, which required his attention in the entry hall.

"Gai?"

* * *

Neji was just about to go to bed when he heard a knock at his door. Displeased at the interruption, he got up to answer it.

"Uncle?"

* * *

Sasuke panted in exhaustion as his feet slipped, knocking his head against the tree, and barely having the energy to catch a branch. He grimaced as he landed and went over to the main gate of the Uchiha compound, hoping it was Kakashi again – at least that way it would be something worth the pain the distraction had cost him.

"Hi Sasuke I had some leftover flowers and-"

"Ino, I keep telling you! No!" he shouted, slamming the door shut.

* * *

In the back of Ichiraku, long after the last customer had left, and the towering pile of dirty dishes had finally been cleaned, Ayame smirked as she walked towards her father. "You know what day today is?" she asked him, her smile widening further, looking as though her lips were touching her ears by this point.

"One month," Teuchi grumbled, pulling out his wallet, and handing a large wad of ryo to his daughter. "Why couldn't they have held out one more month?"

Ayame simply continued to grin, heading up the stairs to her room as she imagined what she could get with her winnings.


	6. Promises Made (Part 1)

**This chapter started to balloon in size, so I figured that I'd break it into two parts, instead of keeping everyone hanging. **

**Also, in case anyone was wondering "When do we get to the punching already!?": I hate how Hinata's usually treated as a prize to be given at the end of a story, instead of a partner throughout. So I'm doing a lot more of the allegedly 'touchy-feely' stuff at the start compared to other fics, and I didn't want to rush it. That's not to say it's going to become all action and adventure with no more romance, either.**

**One last thing, I think my dashes are being turned into hyphens by this site, so if I have hyphens in weird places, that's probably why. But I think I fixed all of the page-breaks that disappeared in earlier chapters, so it's not all bad news on the formatting front.**

* * *

Hinata stared at the ceiling for a few seconds before shutting her eyes once again.

She had not managed to sleep for a single moment during the night. Rest eluded her like a fleeing criminal – her heart refused to slow, her memories refused to leave her alone for even a moment as they continued to bring themselves up to the forefront of her thoughts, her soul refused to return to her body, and her body refused to stop trembling.

"_If that's not love, I don't really know what else it could be._"

"Naruto," she gasped to herself, tasting the flavor of his name on her lips once again. A year ago it felt like they might go their entire lives without ever speaking, but now – now she was happy. Her hand gripped the bed sheet tightly as she recalled the feeling of their bodies pressed together in an embrace in the afternoon sunlight, the clouds passing lazily in the sky above them, and the grass rustling below them.

Her perpetual self-doubt sometimes bubbled up to the surface, telling her she should have done more; that she had lost the only chance in her life to become one flesh with a lover before the dream ended and she came crashing back to reality; that the clan would somehow forbid her from seeing him because he was a commoner; or because he was the prisoner of the greatest demon known to the ninja world. It was almost comedic, how one reason for his unworthiness to them was that he had no significance, while at the same time detesting him due to him being one of the most infamous ninja in the village. Ultimately she managed to keep those thoughts sealed away after their first few appearances.

She was not sure what time it was anymore, but her internal clock knew it was still far too early. With no doubt that she'd be unable to sleep for even a minute no matter how hard she tried, she decided to get an early start on the day. With a deep breath, she pulled her arms out from under the covers, and wormed herself away from her blankets. Her eyes glanced at the clock as she did so, noticing that it was nearly four in the morning.

She carefully took off her pajamas and undergarments, placing them in her laundry basket. A faint blush formed on her cheeks as she pushed the soiled clothes to the bottom of the hamper, and she quickly shuffled over to the shower.

The cold water brought her back to life, the feeling that she had died in the night finally leaving her. With the fog in her mind clearing, she began to remember the other pressing matters in her life. She hoped, truly hoped, that asking Kakashi for help was the right call on Naruto's part. But in the pit of her stomach, she knew that it was too much to ask for. But the voice that she heard from outside seemed to contradict her.

"NEJI! FORGIVE ME!" Might Gai's voice rang out, shaking the walls of every house in the Hyuga compound, and causing a few leaves to fall from their trees. Sounds of exaggerated sobbing accompanied the initial burst. "That I have neglected your training so long that your uncle must handle it himself is truly shameful! From now on, I will make sure not to abandon my duties as your sensei! Let us run two hundred laps around Konoha to warm up, and then we shall train until it is time for our mission!"

"Yosh! Neji, to prove that the flames of our youth cannot be extinguished, let us not use our feet as well!" Rock Lee's voice cheerfully added. It did not carry the same weight as Gai's own shouting, but still rattled quite a few windows.

Hinata smiled as she finished cleaning herself. After toweling off, she put on a clean set of clothes, including one of her many identical jackets and her forehead protector around her neck. She frowned as she looked in the mirror, remembering that she had to pick up her goggles in a day or two.

She opened the door of the small studio she had been living in for the last year – since around the time Hanabi became the heir – and made her way across the Hyuga compound. When she entered the main house, she intended to go to the kitchen to start working on something special, taking advantage of the extra hours she had this morning. What she had not intended to do was nearly run into her father as he walked down a hallway.

Even for someone as like him, who even the older members of the clan referred to as 'strict', 'crotchety', and a 'traditionalist' who tended to fit most of the stereotypes of a man twenty years older than he actually was, this was still an ungodly hour. Normally she managed to get in and out of the kitchen before he woke up, but Gai stopping by and waking up just about every Hyuga around was also not a normal occurrence. She supposed that she couldn't get something for nothing, and right now she would have to settle her tab with the universe.

"I have been informed," he spoke to her rather flatly. "That your sensei wishes to handle all of your training. Unfortunately, I cannot go against the laws of the Regular Forces. But I certainly hope that you do not forget your responsibilities to the clan."

"Y-y-y-yes, father," Hinata replied. He walked away almost before she had finished replying, and she scurried to the kitchen, trying to hide the grin on her face.

* * *

Hinata found her arm locking up as she tried to knock on the door of Naruto's apartment. She had done this dozens of times before, so many times that it was routine by this point, and they had spent enough time together that she was never concerned about passing out anymore. It would be just like any other day – one teammate bringing breakfast over so they could get ready for the day was a pretty common thing in Konoha, after all.

But that had just been as friends, now there was something more between them.

Finding her strength from her latest thought, she lightly rasped her knuckles against the door. Only a few seconds later, it opened, with the blonde shinobi standing before her. Her eyes met his, which were equally red and tired, and the normally-loudmouthed ninja seemed to be at a loss for words.

"Good morning, Naruto. I-I-I made cinnamon rolls," she finally broke the silence after what had to have been a minute.

"Morning, Hinata," he replied, blinking a few times before seeming to snap back, taking a step away from the door to make room. "Oh, uh, right, come in. You're early today."

"I couldn't sleep," she answered, setting down a plate with several large buns, and handing one to the shinobi. "I like cinnamon rolls, I thought I would make them today."

Naruto took a bite of the offered roll, and smiled. "This is really good, Hinata."

"T-thank you," she blushed. Not because of him praising her, which she had gotten quite used to. But rather because her fingers had met his as the pastry was transferred, and while she couldn't tell for sure if it was just her being more attentive at the moment, but it seemed as though his hand had lingered for a few moments before he pulled back and ate the treat.

"But you know… you always make breakfast," he added, frowning.

"Is… is something wrong?" she replied with a cautious question.

"No, no, I like eating your food, but, I don't think it's fair that you always do it. You're not like a maid or something; I should do my own share of things. Could you teach me how to cook?"

"I guess, if you really want to," Hinata answered. "But I like cooking for you, it makes me happy, don't worry."

"It stills feels like I should do something for you, though. Could I… we are… after yesterday I mean we're…." he replied, at an atypical loss for words. "Do you want to go on a date with me?"

"YES!" Hinata shouted her response before her mind had a chance to calm her down. "Yes, I'd like to do that."

"That's what you do when you're dating, right? Go on dates and stuff? What day's good for you? Tomorrow?"

"Uh-huh," Hinata nodded. Then she screamed at herself in her mind, wondering exactly what said 'stuff' was. But her panicking ended halfway through as she remembered something. "Could we maybe do something next Friday? Um, if that's okay with you, I mean. Unless you don't want to, I'd understand."

"Oh, okay…" Naruto trailed off, slightly frowning. "But why not this weekend? Why wait so long?"

"Well, um, it's, um," she sputtered. "Maybe we could take off the whole day after the mission because next Friday is my b-b-birthday."

"Your birthday?" Naruto asked, a bit surprised. He kicked himself for being so ignorant of such a basic thing. He might not have cared much for his own birthday, it being one of the worst days of the year due to everyone being even more intolerant of him than normal – which he now understood the reason for. But Hinata wasn't supposed to be like him in that particular regard. "You don't have plans already?"

"No?" Hinata replied with a frown, a bit confused by his own confusion.

"Doesn't your family do anything for your birthday?"

"No…" Hinata answered, her mood saddening as she thought about the question. "They've never done anything for my birthday since my mother died… no one does…." A single tear drop ran down her cheek as she blinked, and in a moment she found herself crying. Emotions she thought she could contain sprang up to her, most likely a side effect of feeling she could be herself when alone with Naruto. Before she managed to stammer out an apology for breaking down, she felt his arms pulling her up, sweeping her off of her feet as the shinobi's arms hugged her tightly.

"It's okay," Naruto told her, maintaining his grip. "I know how it feels. No one in town celebrates anything on my birthday either."

Instinctively, she sunk her chin into his shoulder blade, and brought down her eyes until she could bury them in his collar. Her own hands returned the embrace as she did so, placing themselves on his back. "Thank you," she whispered.

"This year I'll give you the best birthday you've ever had, okay? Just, just don't cry anymore. I don't like when you cry because it makes me…." He blinked, and a few tears ran down from his eyes. Even with her eyes wet and concealed, the Byakugan meant she could still see up onto his face. She didn't need him to finish the sentence for her to get the message, and felt a pleasantly warm sensation rising in her chest, behind her heart.

She nodded, and he gently set her onto her feet again. He pulled his right hand away from her and swept it against his face, rubbing both of his eyes. Their gazes locked for a moment, and Hinata couldn't help but think just how easy it would be, right in this moment, to lean forward and plant her lips on his own. Even now, she'd never been this intimate with another human being. She had hugged her mother, when she was alive, but it had never felt like it did now. It felt right. It felt safe. It felt good. It even felt wrong, in a good way. She could even read in his eyes that he got just as much out of the moment as she did. Perhaps even more, given how isolated his life was. But she couldn't rush it.

Still, she reached out, and pressed a finger under his eye, wiping away a few stray tears. "Don't cry, Naruto. I'm fine. Please. I don't want to make you sad."

"It's okay," he replied. "I like this feeling. I don't like when you're sad, but I like being able to love someone enough that I can feel like that. And it's true. I thought about yesterday some more, and I'm pretty sure I'm in love with you. I don't ever want to give you a reason to cry, but I want to always be there when you do. So let's do it, Hinata, let's go on a date on Friday. I promise I'll never let you be alone on your birthday again."

"It's a date," she said after a few moments, once she felt like she could talk again.

"Yeah, it's a date," he answered.

"Okay," Hinata replied. She couldn't think of what to say, a thousand thoughts racing through her mind. Nothing she could think of felt like it would. In the end, after several long moments where she didn't want to ever let go, she finally broke away. She immediately reached down to grab another cinnamon roll and shoved nearly half of it into her mouth in one fell swoop, so that she could have an excuse for not adding more to her sentence.

* * *

"Naruto," Kakashi said to one of the many Naruto clones who were helping the team move furniture for their latest mission – moving a family's belonging to their new home. At the moment, they were alone, with Hinata and Naruto busy with an antenna on the roof, and Sasuke assembling a few larger pieces in one of the bedrooms. At first it did not even appear like the Copy Ninja had spoken, as his face was still buried in another of the orange books.

"Yeah, what?" the clone replied.

"I spoke with Gai, and with Hinata's father, you two should be able to train without worrying about the Hyuga clan interfering from now own."

"Okay but h-"

"But you have to promise me one thing."

"Huh? What?"

"Don't pick fights with the Hyuga kid anymore."

"No way! Why should I? That guy's an asshole and I'm going to beat the shit out of -"

Kakashi picked the clone up by the back of his jumpsuit, slammed him into the dirt with enough precision to avoid popping him, and bound him in place with a half-nelson.

"That sort of selfish attitude is exactly the sort of thing that will get you killed on the battlefield, and make your life hell off of it. I thought you said you were going to prove you had what it takes to be a ninja. Are you telling me I made a mistake?"

"No! I-"

"A ninja thinks about his actions," the Copy Ninja continued, somehow managing to flip the page of his orange book with only one hand. "And a ninja thinks about how his actions affect others."

"Right," Naruto growled. "So I have to settle the score with Neji. I have to look out for Hinata. You said it. You said only trash doesn't look out for their team, I'm doing what you want."

"Wrong," the Jonin replied. "You wanted me to get involved to help Hinata out, and I did. Because you three are on my team, and I look out for my team. But you're going to let your anger get in the way of your judgment. Getting into fights with other Genin doesn't help anyone. It raises doubts about my effectiveness as a team leader - then even the Hokage won't be able to object when your families file complaints. Except _you and Sasuke_ don't have to worry about that sort of thing, now do you? There's only one clan who would want to interfere, and they just so happen to be the clan backing up your little rival. So decide; are you a child throwing a tantrum, or a ninja who is in control of his own actions and cares more about his team than about his pride?"

The clone grunted for a few moments, before punching the ground. "God damn it. Fine then, I'm a ninja, Kakashi. I'm a ninja."

"Good," the Jonin said cheerfully, returning to his novel. He jabbed his finger into the back of the clone's neck, causing it to disappear.

* * *

Naruto froze as he was helping Hinata prop up a television antenna.

"Naruto? Something wrong?"

The blonde shinobi glanced up, snapping out of his reverie at the sound of her voice. He paused again for a moment as he gazed at her face. Her eyes were heavy and her mouth curled ever so slightly, concern easily visible. Naruto felt a sinking feeling in his stomach as he processed the clone's memories. His hands balled up into fists as he thought about things a second time. He realized what the clone did, that he couldn't stand to see her cry again like she had yesterday, like she had this morning - at least not if he could help it. He still couldn't get rid of the rage that wanted to cave Neji's skull in - it would _always_ be there - but Hinata was more important.

"Oh, nothing, just a clone's memories coming back, no big deal," he told her, putting on a grin.


End file.
